@Arthur Doohan
RE: Rotation/ and extra junior ministry secret agreement
Even stepping away from my deep contempt for the Green PP I still think this is another shocking example of their covering up and distorting as in the NAMA debate. If they had announced they were going to do this when they went into government I would have disagreed and criticised them when they did it. But to agree it and then keep it secret, even from Eamon Ryan (?), is appalling. All Irish parties ditch their policies, engage in jobbery and misrepresent – the Green PP have done all that on a gigantic scale and kept a discredited government in power while assisting in its cover ups and corrupt mega theft. Still, to do so over positions in the government of the state itself and for so long is astounding. We now know this government began with secrecy and corruption. It looks like the Green PP just continued as they had begun, sinking lower and lower into a corrupt swamp all the time.

It is my understanding that Min. Ryan was aware of the “deal”. Further, I don’t see how it would be possible to construct such a deal without encompassing both of the Cabinet seats.

@Admin
The current GP are surely finished. Even FF/PDs have never made secret arrangements to swop ministerial positions (AND kept them hidden for 3 years). FF/PDs are hated. But the current GP have sunk so low that many people now hate them even more than FF/PDs. They are acting exactly like FFers. The only difference in policy – as distinct from lifestyle – is that they are a bit more environmentally concerned. But with FF we knew they were chancers – we just believed they could not be remotely as reckless and corrupt as we now know. That reflects on us. But in the case of the GP they marketed themselves as FF’s polar opposite but have now turned into them. That reflects only on them and hence they will be even more hated.

The GP is finished. Those who are involved in an alternative are the (only) political future in Ireland of the environmental movement.

That’s a bit of a rant, Oliver but I will publish it anyway.

The curious thing about GP support is that ‘green voters’ are ‘conviction voters’ (true believers, if you will) and may stay ‘green’ almost regardless of the current performance of their representatives – although I grant you there seems to be little prospect of support returning to the 8/9 level of 2007.

WRT finance policy, I am not sure the average Green knows or understands enough of it to realise what they have turned themselves into…..

@Arthur Doohan
“The curious thing about GP support is that ‘green voters’ are ‘conviction voters’ (true believers, if you will) and may stay ‘green’ almost regardless of the current performance of their representatives – although I grant you there seems to be little prospect of support returning to the 8/9 level of 2007.”
I thought that might be the case too but then came the local elections. I would disagree and say that GP voters are the MOST demanding of any political party and that GP transferers (I was one) have high expectations of them too. GP members also have the highest standards of any party and their dissidents are more principled yet again (although the dissidents leaving drags down the average significantly). Even if any Green TD has a superb local constituency operation (?) they have alienated, I would say, half to two thirds of their eventual final count voters in the last election. The only way one or two will survive is massive delivery to their local constituency (and that is not as big a factor in Dublin) and….an election voting pact with FF.

After the most recent revelation I wouldn’t be surprised.

Oh, indeed.

After the latest revelations, I wouldn’t, at this stage, be surprised at a complete re-enactment of the ‘Book of Revelation’ – after all we already have the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding about the economy, the health service, the pensions reform and the climate (War, Famine, Conquest & Death….)

@Arthur Doohan
My ranting is contagious! With simultaneous economic, budgetary and banking collapses the Green PP are keeping in office an FF/PD government who have given us an economic apocalypse. Brian Lenihan has convinced them they are gaining “credibility” by “taking the tough decisions”. To anyone who might have supported them now or in the future it’s not the case. They are only gaining in infamy. Trying to “green” a government that has given us an economic apocalypse? It’s insane.

I just read The Pheonix. If it is true then the whole Green PP were guilty of cynical deception at the time they went into government. The gigantic egos shown by the demand that all TDs get a position in the country’s government by right (and later a job for DeBurca, and then another (third) senator) are astounding. They make the PDs look humble and FF look like St Francis. They acted like a group of superentitled Wall Street corporate lawyers. I said a Green pact with FF was now a possibility. Now I’m thinking that joining FF in planning corruption can’t be far away.