Diarmuid Doyle - "Green voters of 2007 felt an awful lot better about themselves
last weekend as they placed their first preference beside a candidate of another
party..."

Mary Coughlan
I didn't vote for the Green Party in the 2007 general election, although all my
instincts would have been tugging me in that direction. About a week before
polling day, the Green candidate in Meath popped an election leaflet through my
door, outlining all the issues he and his party believed were important, and all
the reasons he and his party thought they deserved a vote. The biggest local
issue at the time, environmentally speaking, was the building of the M3
motorway, which had been vehemently opposed by the Green Party. Yet there wasn't
a mention of it on the election leaflet. It seemed the Greens were running
scared on this most divisive of issues in Meath and were not prepared to take a
principled stand where that principled stand might actually cost votes. It was
an act of cowardice, in my view, and I took my vote elsewhere.
The subsequent decision by the Green Party to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil
did not remotely surprise me, therefore, although it was still one of the most
shameless acts of political chicanery for some years. At the Green annual
conference a few months before the 24 May vote, John Gormley had made his now
famous Planet Bertie speech. It was a remarkably strong contribution,
articulating clearly and cleverly the reservations many people had about Bertie
Ahern and the party he led at the time. The main achievement of the speech was
to signal to voters who did not want to see Ahern and Fianna Fáil back in
government that the Green Party was a kind of safe haven for their vote. Fine
Gael would have been too right-wing for many people and it was hard to shake off
the feeling that the Labour Party would have signed up for a spin on the Fianna
Fáil merry-go-round with very little persuasion. Gormley's speech was a promise,
quickly broken, that if you voted for his party, it would do nothing to help
maintain Bertie Ahern's hold on power.
Last weekend's rejection of the Greens – as near to an example of instant karma
as Irish politics allows – should be seen in this context.
Few people who voted on 5 June blame the Greens for the economic downturn. They
know who is responsible for that, which is what the Fianna Fáil vote was all
about. I doubt, either, if they are overly cross with the Greens for the huge
rise in unemployment or the savage levies on the wages of those still lucky
enough to have jobs. At this point in the economic downturn, people expect some
pain; they just won't accept it from the people who created, through a mixture
of carelessness and stupidity, the conditions where that pain became necessary.
(Again, see the Fianna Fáil vote last weekend).
The flight from the Greens was about punishment for something more personal – it
was retribution for being lied to, and for the immediate betrayal of the
implicit message of the Planet Bertie speech – that here was a party of
principle, not easily tempted by the trappings of power. It was, too, a kind of
purging, a farewell to self-loathing, as voters rushed to redress the error they
had made two years ago. Make no mistake about it, the Green voters of 2007 felt
an awful lot better about themselves last weekend as they placed their first
preference beside a candidate of another party, and vowed never to get fooled
again.
The question now, of course, is whether having got that contempt for Gormley and
his party out of their systems, voters might be tempted to vote Green in the
next general election. After all, is climate change not the great challenge of
the future for governments, too important to be overshadowed by petty and
unreasonable demands for politicians to mean what they say? And is a Green Party
not, therefore, a vital component of any modern administration?
The answer is yes, as long as the party in question is a serious one, with
serious prospects of implementing Green policy. So far, the Irish Greens have
little to show for their two years in power other than a few innovations which,
as their former councillor Bronwen Maher has pointed out, would have been
required by European law anyway. Gormley and his crew need to work out the
difference between tokenism and real effort, between crumbs from the cabinet
table and real achievement.
The proposed review of the programme for government becomes crucial, therefore.
Tens of thousands of former Green supporters are watching closely.
The ladykillers Axing Coughlan Is Delusional
An early sign that many Fianna Fáil backbenchers still don't get what happened
on polling day could be found in the off-the-record briefings to journalists
during the week that a cabinet reshuffle was imminent, with Mary Coughlan
(below) set to be the main casualty. At that point, apparently, backbenchers
will return to their constituencies, content as cats after savaging a pigeon,
safe in the knowledge that all is well with the world.
The idea that demoting Coughlan will in some way satisfy the public is
delusional even by the imbecilic standards of the average Fianna Fáil
backbencher. It is also, I've no doubt, slightly misogynistic in some cases.
Coughlan may not have performed well in the last 12 months, but she's hardly
alone. She doesn't deserve to be the sole sacrificial lamb.
As the election results showed, most voters want the entire cabinet to be axed.
ddoyle@...
June 14, 2009
http://www.tribune.ie/news/editorial-opinion/article/2009/jun/14/diarmuid-doyle-\
green-voters-of-2007-felt-an-awful-/

Noirin Hegarty, editor of The Sunday Tribune, can be contacted at
nhegarty@...
To reach The Sunday Tribune newsdesk, contact newsdesk@...


Green TDs warn of potential pull-out
Sunday, June 14, 2009 By Niamh Connolly, Political Correspondent
Green Party TDs have warned that the party will pull out of government unless
the review of the Programme for Government delivers significant reform.

Party chief whip Ciaran Cuffe, Deputy Paul Gogarty and Senator Dan Boyle
criticised the slow pace of government reform. The party's national executive
yesterday drew up plans for regional meetings between its parliamentary party
members and its 97 local election candidates to discuss the issue.

A special convention of the party's 1,900 members is then likely to be called
for the autumn, when a vote will be held on whether to remain in government
based on the revised programme agreed between party leader John Gormley and
Taoiseach Brian Cowen.




Negotiations may begin before the end of the month, and Gormley is unlikely to
bring a new programme to the special convention unless he believes it will
receive the required two-thirds majority. The Green Party believes that a major
shake-up of the government's priorities in the programme is needed to continue
in coalition with Fianna Fail.

Cuffe said the Greens were ``more interested in policy than power, and if we
don't see that policy coming forward, we're happy to walk''.

``It's worth staying in [government], but we need clear timeframes on policy
issues," said Cuffe. ``We need to ramp up the policy delivery."
Cuffe pointed to delays in the publication of the Civil Partnership Bill, which
he said should have been finalised before the local elections. ``This is
symptomatic of the concerns we have to push through."

While he said that the coming months would be ``tough'', he insisted that
Gormley's bargaining power had not been reduced by the Greens' poor showings in
the local and European elections.
Green Party senator Dan Boyle accused Fianna Fáil of ``reacting'' to economic
circumstances. He said there was ``a reluctance'' by Fianna Fáil to introduce
reform of the Dáil, the Seanad, the system of political contributions and the
Freedom of Information Act. ``We can't stand over this," he said.

Dublin Mid-West TD Paul Gogarty said the ``annihilation'' in the elections last
weekend had given Gormley more bargaining power to push for change, and that the
government's reduced majority meant the party had ``numeric leverage''.

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