THE GREEN Party has moved to play down the prospect of a split with its Fianna Fáil coalition partners over a Green demand to review the programme for government.
"We are not seeking a way out of government," Minister for Communications Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan told The Irish Times.
“We are two years in Government and we are looking to see what we have done and what we do now,” he added.
Stressing that the Greens were not preparing an exit strategy, he said: “We are looking for ways of making Government work better”.
The Minister’s comments came after a weekend of intense speculation about the coalition’s future, sparked off by Senator Dan Boyle, who had described various aspects of Government policy generally associated with Fianna Fáil as “a disaster”.
“The policy of pump-priming the property boom has been a disaster. The light-touch regulation of our financial institutions has been a disaster. The awarding of excessive salary arrangements in the private sector, in the public sector and in political life has been a disaster,” he said.
The Green Party chairman continued: “The policies pursued have not been Green Party policies, and yet we now find ourselves in Government having to deal with their consequences.”
Most of the Green party elements of the programme for government had now been implemented, he said. “It is a document that is in need of review, and the period after these elections would be an ideal opportunity to do that.”
Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley went on RTÉ News, in the aftermath of Senator Boyle’s statement, to deny the Greens were preparing to walk out.
“There isn’t as much money in the economy, we have had to cut public expenditure and now we have to relook at the priorities in the programme for government in the light of that,” he said.
The moves came as the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll showed a decline in support for the Government and the Greens, with 93 per cent of Green supporters themselves expressing dissatisfaction.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen later told Newstalk on Saturday night: “I will discuss with John Gormley any issues he wishes to have, but at the end of the day the basic construct of the programme is as we devised it just two years ago and we need to get on with implementing it . . .”
Identifying the priorities was “something that Government comes to, every week and every month”, Mr Cowen added.
Asked if the Greens were preparing their exit from Government, Mr Cowen said: “No. The Green Party and ourselves have a job to do. The last thing this country needs is an election.”
Although Mr Cowen was not given advance notice of Senator Boyle’s remarks in Tralee on Friday night, his office was informed beforehand of the timing and content of Mr Gormley’s Saturday broadcast.
However it is clear that Senator Boyle, running in the European elections in Ireland South, was reflecting party thinking at the senior level in his call for a review.
Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan told The Irish Timesyesterday: "We have been working on this for several weeks in our own parliamentary party."
He continued: “Come what may, after the election this is what we want to do.
“What we are looking for in the review is to put the ‘Smart Economy’ plan into real action and to prioritise it.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s This Week yesterday, Mr Cowen strongly denied that the Coalition was coming apart: “Not at all.”
The programme for government would be pursued “until 2012”, when the current Government’s five-year term is due to end.
A Green Party spokesman told this newspaper: “The Taoiseach has said he will discuss anything with the Green Party which they want to discuss. That is sufficient and we will take it from there.”
The party’s former MEP for Dublin, Patricia McKenna, now running as an Independent said the Greens were engaged in “a cynical exercise in political posturing”.
Rejecting charges of cynicism, a Green Party spokesman said: “We have operated honourably and honestly in the 23 months of Government and we will continue to do that.”