GREEN PARTY:With no local authority seats in Dublin the Green Party fears a Dáil wipeout in the event of an early general election, writes HARRY McGEE
THE GREEN Party experienced an electoral meltdown over the course of the weekend that has been surpassed only by the 2007 evisceration of the Progressive Democrats in recent times.
Five years ago, the party was one of the big winners in the local elections when it gained 10 seats to win 18 full council seats, winning half of that total in the four Dublin local authority areas.
By contrast, the party’s performance this weekend was devastatingly bad. The party now has only three council seats nationally. To compound its misery, it lost all of its eight seats in the capital, the party’s powerbase. With five of its six TDs based in Dublin, that raised very uncomfortable questions about how many, if any, could hold on to their seats in the event of a general election.
On a more fundamental level, the outcome confronting the party conjures up resonances with the PDs. Party leader John Gormley described the elections as traumatic. In the circumstances, that was a euphemism. The party has been so peripheralised in local government that its very survival is questioned.
“It’s been an extremely bad election. I’m not going to spin any line to you. The facts speak for themselves,” Mr Gormley said.
“If you look across Europe, Green parties that have been in government have been hammered and Green parties in opposition have done well,” he said.
There were few straws to clutch from the other elections. Green candidates were also-rans in Dublin South and Dublin Central. And its two high-profile Senators, Dan Boyle and Déirdre de Búrca, made no real impact in the South or Dublin Euro constituencies.
Elsewhere, rubbing salt into the wounds, Chris O’Leary, one of the two councillors who defected from the party in protest at its continuation in government, retained his seat on Cork City Council, standing as an Independent.
The three remaining Green councillors are all based outside the main urban areas. Brian Meaney in Clare and Malcolm Noonan in Kilkenny retained their seats, on the back of strong profiles in their areas. The party’s only breakthrough was Mark Dearey, who won a seat on Louth County Council, having previously been a borough councillor in Dundalk. Mr Dearey, a rising star in the party, bucked the national trend by assembling a large and youthful team which has been actively canvassing for a year.
However, other candidates who worked tirelessly with large teams were not so lucky. Joe Corr, a councillor in Fingal, skipped the party’s convention in February because it would eat into canvassing time. In the event, he failed to retain his seat. His experience was shared by all its candidates in what were considered to be Green strongholds. What is most alarming for the party is that it no longer has a presence in the cities of Dublin, Cork and Galway.
Niall Ó Brolcháin, who came close to winning a Dáil seat in Galway West in 2007, lost out narrowly in city council elections. All four of the party’s councillors in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown lost seats. Until the weekend it was the strongest council for the Greens.
Clare Wheeler, its lone councillor on Dublin City Council (after the defection of Bronwen Maher), suffered as a result of a collapse in the party’s vote. Its two leading candidates in South Dublin, Cllr Dorothy Corrigan and Dr Kevin Farrell, failed to make an impact. Those local seats in the urban areas were the springboard for the party’s national presence. On the basis of these results, all of the party’s five TDs would be in jeopardy in a general election.
The party acknowledged this weekend that its key messages, particularly its claim that 50 per cent of all jobs created this year were “green jobs”, made no impact with voters. Instead, the Greens suffered because of the association with their larger coalition partner.
Mr Gormley insisted the party would not pull out of government. He did say a process of internal consultation would take place to assess the outcome. Privately, the Greens accept the party will have to remain in government for the medium term as the only other option is an early general election where it would almost certainly lose all its Dáil seats.