Claire Byrne

Well, the government won its confidence vote last night, but lost a government minister as Michael Healy-Ray announced his resignation.

Here was the moment he stepped down.

In a moment, I'll speak to independent TD for Sligo, Leitrim, and Minister of State, Marion Hark, and also disability campaigner, Tracey Carroll.

But I'm joined firstly by Newstalk's political correspondent, Sean Defoe.

Sean, good morning to you.

It seemed as though this was pretty much

a complete surprise to the government.

So talk us through what we know about how it came about yesterday or what led up to Michael Healy-Ray's resignation.

Okay, so let's talk about then how the government looks after this.

And in particular, there's a lot of focus on Fianna Fáil, or let's start with Fianna Fáil firstly, because Jim O'Callaghan, as we know, came in for a lot of criticism following his press statement last Thursday about the Defence Forces being ready to help the Gardaí.

Is there a sense...

that the notion of him as being the front runner for the next leader of Fianna Fáil, that his position in that regard is damaged now.

You'd wonder whether the timeline on the leadership change has shifted now as a result of what happened.

And it's a strange.

But right at the top of the party, there doesn't seem to be the same level of criticism that Fianna Fáil is getting.

OK, well, Sean, stay with us if you can, because I want to bring in Marion Harkin at this point.

Good morning to you, Marion.

Did you know that Michael Healy-Ray was going to do what he did yesterday?

So they got a completely different deal to the one that you got.

What do you make of his decision?