Minister for Energy, Eamon Ryan, has expressed his full support for the stance his Green Party colleagues in the Seanad took, in abstaining on a vote on the Criminal Justice Bill.
Mr Ryan rejected suggestions of a rift within the Greens and insisted there was no "major divide" between party members.
The party last night voted against the Government for the first time since the administration was formed in 2007, when its two Senators rejected a guillotining of the final stage of the controversial Criminal Justice Amendment Bill.
Senators Dan Boyle and Deirdre de Burca also abstained in the final vote when the Bill was passed by 35 votes to seven, with the support of Fine Gael. The Greens voted against the Government motion to take the report or final stage last night rather than allowing extra time today but it was accepted by 24 to 20 votes.
Mr Boyle, the party chairman, said afterwards that the Greens were unhappy with assurances given by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern about how the review of the legislation would be conducted in 12 months time.
Speaking outside an event in Dublin today, Mr Ryan said: " I've listened to my colleague Dan Boyle from the Seanad this morning on the radio and what he said was right.
“It's unfortunate that we came to it [the Bill] with what we thought were very good suggestions and proposals that could help this legislation and there wasn't an ability to agree on that, and Dan felt, and Deirdre, that they wanted to make a statement in that regard.”
"So I fully support them. You know we work collectively in Government for the good of this country and we're determined to continue doing that."
Mr Ryan said there was no divide at the cabinet table.
"We're working to try and achieve what we think is best in legislation, in budgets, in policies, in banking and elsewhere. And we do that. We're working all the time to get what we think is the right outcome for the Irish people.”
The Bill provides for non-jury Special Criminal Court trials for criminal gangs and for the evidence of serving gardaí or former gardaí of any rank to give expert evidence as to the existence of such gangs.
Last night Mr Boyle acknowledged that the Greens had an “ongoing difficulty” with Mr Ahern and justice legislation. “This is building for a long time. It has to do with a particular relationship. It has to do with how policy in a particular area is progressing and our ongoing discomfort with that.”
He said he did not know if Mr Ahern was being deliberately provocative but “the effect of his actions is not to properly recognise our concerns on this and other legislation and we feel we had to send a clear signal as to how we feel the quality of that relationship has to improve”.
He denied their vote was anything to do with the party’s conference on Saturday to deal with their approach to the Lisbon Treaty referendum and a review of the programme for government. A lot of the damage had “already been done” to the party through legislation such as the Defamation Bill, and on student loans. He said on the relationship with Fianna Fáil that “we can’t honestly say that that exists to a level that we’d like”.
He said they were looking for a “robust, quite stringent procedure of review”. He said they wanted a clear statement about how the review would take place because “it’s obviously a Bill that has serious connotations on whether rights are affected or not. How the justice committee would be involved and how there was confidence that it would be subject to constant questioning as to whether it compromised the rights of all citizens or not.”
Mr Boyle said they were looking for a stronger set of safeguards. He said the party leadership was aware of their move.
Fine Gael Seanad leader Frances Fitzgerald described the Green move as “a pathetic gesture from a discredited and directionless Green party”.
“If they are not going to support the Government why don’t they just pull out of government,” she added.