ANALYSIS:DURING ITS national conference in Dundalk last year, the Green Party ran a workshop that featured the benefits of induction cooking and washing laundry at 30 degrees.
It was neatly illustrative of the fact that the compromise of coalition hasn’t fully ironed out those quirks that used to set the Greens apart from other mainstream parties in the past.
We got another reminder of that residual eccentricity last week thanks to Dublin Mid West TD Paul Gogarty's extraordinary interview with Hot Pressmagazine.
However, when you looked behind Gogarty’s colourful language and unique take on the world in that interview, he did have some salient and substantial political points to make about the status and integrity of his party in government. Gogarty argued that the party was in danger of being identified solely with bicycles and light bulbs. He was voicing concern that on the Titanic of State, the junior Coalition partner was being put in charge of deckchair-arranging.
His observation was timely and to the point. In Wexford this weekend, the party faces into its second convention since entering government faced with a sense of formidable challenges. In the short term, there are the forthcoming European and local elections. Medium-term challenges include weathering the economic storms, keeping the Coalition intact and retaining its own identity and raison d’etre in its “devil’s pact” with Fianna Fáil, despite recent opinion poll ratings.
That said, the party leadership decided early on that it would stay the course of government, no matter what vagaries it would face. To its credit, it has done just that and, at times, has stood in a more steadfast way behind Taoiseach Brian Cowen than some windy Fianna Fáilers.
That show of loyalty has seen political opponents and commentators charge that its absorption into Fianna Fáil government has been seamless; that the two parties have become almost indistinguishable.
Of course, it is hyperbole. But the Green Party’s surprising attitude of accommodation and appeasement has been facilitated by a younger, more pragmatic and less radical membership.
This has been evidenced by majority membership support for a Yes vote for the Lisbon Treaty, the almost-unchallenged support of the Coalition arrangement, and the sense that prominent dissenters have either been marginalised or, have, in the case of Bronwen Maher, left the party altogether. And it is not exactly as if all its wishes have been granted. Faced with such an overwhelming economic crisis, the party has been forced to trim back on some of its bigger goals in Government for the common good.
Reducing emissions is after all the name of the game for the party but there are more immediate priorities. Still, with relatively paltry resources, the Green Ministers have magicked relatively modest plans (the home insulation scheme, an aspirational sustainable transport plan, VRT and motor tax changes, cycle initiatives and light bulbs) to make it seem like the party is punching above its weight.
Paradoxically, the economic slump, with no input from the Greens, has made what seemed impossible a year ago (meeting the Kyoto targets), very attainable now because of falling car sales, less freight, lower output, lower energy use. That said, the deteriorating economic situation has seen a change of tack.
The theme of this weekend, Towards a Green New Deal, shows it making a virtue out of necessity with its argument that the embrace of green technology and sustainable economics can provide a pathway to jobs and out of recession.
Allied to that, against the foreboding backdrop of imminent elections, the party will have to show this weekend that it is not merely an adjunct to Fianna Fáil, and that its policies have, and can, make a difference. It is also consciously setting out to show that it is still an independent party with its own agenda and ideological underpinning.
Harry McGee is a member of
The Irish Times
political staff