WORLD BRIEFING / IRELAND
Parliament speaker John O’Donoghue said he will resign next week over growing controversy regarding his expense claims.
O’Donoghue, who has incurred $132,600 in foreign travel expenses since taking over as speaker in June 2007, was asked to quit by Ireland’s two main opposition parties.
He also spent more than half a million euros on travel when minister for tourism from 2002 to 2007.
A spokesman for the parliament said it was the first time a speaker of the House had offered a formal resignation.
O’Donoghue will return to the governing Fianna Fail party’s benches, where he will boost Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s razor-thin majority. Cowen’s junior partners, the Green Party, who hold the balance of power, will vote Saturday on whether to remain in government. The expenses scandal has added to their strained relationship.
However, to take advantage, Cowen would need a replacement speaker willing to back the government on a hung vote. O’Donoghue’s deputy, the Labor Party’s Brendan Howlin, is the bookies’ favorite to take over.
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