A group of Irish parliamentarians have called on the government to delay the Fiscal Treaty Referendum.

The independent deputies will make the call in the Dublin senate on Monday afternoon.

They have been backed by European Parliament member Marian Harkin in their bid to delay the May 31st vote.

The group includes Dublin South deputy Shane Ross, Kildare North representative Catherine Murphy and Dublin North-Central’s Finian McGrath.

They are calling for the referendum to be delayed in light of the political uncertainty in the Euro-zone.
The deputies are making their call in reaction to the election of Francois Hollande as president in France.

They are also concerned by the political uncertainty in Greece, the fall of the Dutch government and the electoral defeat of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s party at the weekend.

“Deferral makes more sense by the hour,” wrote Ross on Twitter after Merkel’s Christian Democrats party was heavily defeated in a regional election in the German province of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Ross also pointed out that the German parliament has delayed its ratification of the treaty and the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund in order to see if EU leaders can agree growth measures at a summit in Brussels on May 23rd.

The new calls for a delay on the vote have been repeated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) general secretary David Begg.

He said: “The referendum should be delayed while Irish leaders get behind attempts by Hollande to agree growth measures for Euro-zone countries.”

TheJournal.ie website says that the Irish government has ruled any delay to the vote on May 31st, citing the certainty and decisiveness that investors want and which a Yes vote will deliver, in their view.