Taoiseach Simon Harris has ruled out calling a general election on the back of the local election results “because we’ve lots to do”.
He was speaking at the RDS count centre in Dublin, as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil battle it out to become the largest party in local government.
“The three parties in government want to get on with the work, because I’ll be back at my desk tomorrow morning working hard on issues that matter to the people,” Mr Harris said.
“The people of Ireland have just gone out and voted in local elections and European elections and I think what the people right across the country want me to do is my job.
Yesterday Regina Doherty, the Fine Gael candidate for the European Parliament in Dublin, said Mr Harris has had a “positive impact” since becoming Taoiseach in April.
“I’m 61 days as Taoiseach of this country. They want me to bring energy not just to the campaign trail, but to also solving some issues, including ones that have seemed intractable in the past, and that’s my absolute determination.
“But don’t worry. We will have a general election and I very much look forward to it in due course,” he added.
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Mr Harris also said that Irish people are compassionate and “full of common sense” in relation to migration.
“I believe that people right across this country are two things when it comes to migration: I believe they’re compassionate and I believe they’re full of common sense.
“And they want to see Government policy bring those two things together.” he added.
“They want to help people in need. They recognise the benefit of migration to our economy and society. But they also want to know that there’s a common sense approach in terms of rules, in terms of welfare, in terms of deportations, processing times.
“And yes, I absolutely expect that the people in this country will want to see me as their Taoiseach work with colleagues to manage this situation and to put a sustainable migration system in place and that’s what I intend to do.”
Mr Harris added that it is clear from the local election results that the public wants “more than soundbites or rhetoric or noise in relation to housing”.
