Dáil Éireann yesterday

Yesterday.

The Dáil voted in support of a Labour Party motion to postpone the sale of AIB shares.

But.

The Government is reportedly going ahead with it anyway.

In today’s Irish Times, Pat Leahy and Joe Brennan report:

The Department of Finance moved yesterday evening to play down the impact of the passing of the Labour Party Private Members’ motion proposing to delay the AIB share sale until European Union fiscal rules are relaxed.

During a Dáil vote, nobody on the Government side indicated their preference and the motion was deemed to have passed. Opposition TDs believed that Government TDs were distracted by the internal party leadership challenge.

“Private Members’ motions are not legally binding on the Government,” the department said in a statement. “The Government position remains unchanged. The programme for partnership government clearly allows the Minister to sell up to 25 per cent of Allied Irish Banks up to the end of 2018.”

Michael Noonan set to trigger AIB flotation (The Irish Times)