Lowry breaks his silence on support for the government

Tipperary TD Michael Lowry has broken his silence on the position of the government stating that he expects the general election to be well underway long before any motion of No Confidence could be discussed in Dail Eireann.

The Holycross man issued a statement to tipperarylive.ie this evening and said that his assessment of the present political circumstances lead him to the firm conclusion that the current Dail will not be given an opportunity to debate a confidence motion in Health Minister Simon Harris. 

"Dail procedures dictate that this confidence motion will not be heard until February 5th.  I expect the Taoiseach will exercise his prerogative to call an election which will be well underway by February 5th , therefore speculation on my voting intentions is immaterial and irrelevant," he said.

Deputy Lowry had been inundated with calls from the national media to publicly state his position, but has kept his counsel until now. Speculation has been rife that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will be forced to call a general election as he will not have the necessary votes to see off a No Confidence motion in MInister Harris, without the support of Fianna Fail. He would also be dependent on Deputy Lowry, Deputy Noel Grealish and Deputy Denis Naughten  voting with the government as well.