‘Greens open to coalition with Sinn Féin’

Sir, – Eamon Ryan may have just delivered the coup de grâce to an already weakened Green Party with his promise to consider going into government with Sinn Féin (“Greens open to coalition with Sinn Féin”, News, January 30th).

For many voters, Sinn Féin and the Green Party provide a home for a protest vote against the traditional parties of government.

In the case of the Greens, they benefit from this protest vote precisely because they are not Sinn Féin, and they attract this support from people who wouldn’t vote for Sinn Féin if it was the only party on the ballot paper.

If the Greens are now marketing themselves as the environmental wing of Sinn Féin, they may find that much of what they considered core support has begun to leak away, like diesel sludge into a Border river. – Yours, etc,