Where to, now?

The time has come for the Greens to decide whether they are the party of handwringing treehuggers who want the world to be a nicer place without anyone actually to having to get upset, hurt or offended in the process, if that’s alright with everyone, or whether they are a political party engaged in a life or death struggle for the salvation of humanity and it’s place on the planet.

It is all very well having a well developed education policy and fine upstanding views on healthcare, equality, neutrality and a couple of nice notions about sustainable development. But if we are going to let FF trample all over those principles, and us, in order to protect the property rights of speculators, there is little point in being in Government.

We spoke for years about the skewed development and inherent inequity in Irish politics. But the first time we had our hands on the levers of power we let go in fright as FF raced to protect the very people we believed had corrupted the country.

We look to the electorate like people who have achieved a very nice arrangement of the deckchairs on the Titanic. This is especially pathetic at a time when a small change in the direction of the ship now means that we could avoid the iceberg entirely rather than having to jam on the brakes in twenty years time.

Not only have we not convinced anyone new that we are competent farsighted politicians, we have failed to convince the ‘Greens’ in the street that we actually have any courage or integrity. To quote Norman Lamont – “we give the impression that we are in office but not in power”.

Mr. Ahern is now quoted as saying that he believes the Greens are in Govt. for ‘the long haul‘. He goes on to praise our performance in Govt. Was this irony, sarcasm or patronising. At this cost to us his praise is hard won and not wanted. We are being praised by the people we most loathe. It seems we really have lost the plot. What I want to hear from FF ministers is that they feel the cost of doing business with us is too high for them.

As for John Gormley saying that ‘withdrawing from Government does not arise as an issue for discussion at the NEC’, he once again, as at the time of the Lisbon treaty, seems to have forgotten the internal democratic processes of his party. It is not for him to decide what will be discussed at the NEC. We are not yet fully integrated into FF, Mr. Gormley. Your writ does not run there. Indeed, it is hard for me to see where your writ does run.

Any chance Trevor would like to pick up this particular chalice?