Government of the 31st Dáil

The Economic Management Council was a cabinet subcommittee of senior ministers formed to co-ordinate the response to the Irish financial crisis and the government's dealings with the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.[28] Its members were the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.[29] It was supported by the Department of the Taoiseach, led by Dermot McCarthy.[28][30] Brigid Laffan compared it to a war cabinet.[31] Opposition parties suggested the Council represented a dangerous concentration of power.[32]

Following the formation of a government in 2016, Shane Ross, a member of the Government of the 32nd Dáil, confirmed in the Dáil that the subcommittee would not form part of the new government. Ross told the Dáil on 6 May 2016: "I had a conversation last night with the Taoiseach. I was talking to him about Dáil reform and I asked him about an issue - a last point I had forgotten to ask about earlier - which was the abolition of the Economic Management Council. I thought it was going to be like one of these thorny topics which we had been through over the last few weeks. He told me okay, it is gone, that it had been needed for a particular time and it is not needed any more and I was to consider it gone. To me that was very encouraging because it meant that one of those obstacles to Dáil reform, one of those rather secretive bodies that had dictated to the Cabinet and to the Dáil the agenda of what came out to the country, was now a thing of the past."[33]

On 3 February 2016, Taoiseach Enda Kenny sought a dissolution of the Dáil which was granted by the president, with the new Dáil to convene on 10 March.[34] The general election took place on 26 February.

The members of the 32nd Dáil first met on 10 March. Enda Kenny, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, and Richard Boyd Barrett of the Anti-Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit were each proposed for nomination as Taoiseach. None of the four motions were successful.[35] Kenny announced that he would resign as Taoiseach but that under the provisions of Article 28.11 of the Constitution, the government would continue to carry out their duties until their successors were appointed.[36] Kenny continued in this capacity until 6 May 2016, when he was again nominated for the appointment by the president to the position of Taoiseach and formed the 30th Government of Ireland.

• Politics of the Republic of Ireland