DIFFERENCES OVER the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) legislation have led to sharp exchanges between Green Party leader John Gormley and the director general of the Construction Industry Federation and former Progressive Democrats minister of state Tom Parlon.
Mr Parlon’s criticism of the Greens’ demands for a “social dividend” in the legislation led to a warning from the Minister in the Dáil to Mr Parlon and his members to “keep your noses out of Nama”.
Later, on RTÉ’s News at One, the Minister said if the Greens’ members rejected Nama and the renegotiated programme for government at their conference on October 10th, “there’s no question that we could not continue our participation in government”.
In an interview on Morning Ireland, Mr Parlon had said the federation didn’t want Nama to be “strangled or hogtied” by what he termed “extra issues”.
“The Greens have been talking about a social dividend. I believe that Nama has enough of a job to do to try and resolve the issue that it’s been given,” he added.
Speaking later in the Dáil, Mr Gormley said in response to Mr Parlon: “I disagree profoundly and fundamentally with him and his members. I have one message for Mr Parlon and his people: ‘Please, keep your noses out of Nama’.”
Explaining his party’s approach, the Minister said: “It is essential that there is a social dividend to Nama and that there is a first-refusal mechanism on Nama assets for social projects, from schools to hospitals and community facilities.” Interviewed on News at One, Mr Gormley was asked if the party membership rejected Nama, would he lead his colleagues out of government.
“Well, we have to look at what the motion is . . . but if there is a rejection – and it depends on how you define that, and it depends on the motion – but certainly, if the programme for government is rejected, if Nama is rejected, yes, there’s no question that we could not continue our participation in government.”
When it was put to him that Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan’s speech in the Dáil on Wednesday was vague on the “green” aspects of the legislation, Mr Gormley replied: “It was carefully phrased, but I’m saying to you now, as the leader of the Green Party, as a member of this Government and, I would say . . . that that has to be firmed up, that we have to see real measures taken at committee stage.”
He warned that, unless there was a “real social dividend, I don’t see my party members accepting this. It has to be real”. The Green Party would be submitting amendments at committee stage: “We will ensure that the windfall tax is part of this legislation. We will ensure that the social dividend is part of this legislation.”
Asked to what extent participation in government by the Greens depended on the party getting appropriate amendments to the Bill, he replied: “I would say it’s fundamental.”
But he added: “The programme for government is also essential and we are deciding on two issues on the 10th of October, one is Nama and, of course, the other one is the programme for government.”
In a statement, Fine Gael environment spokesman Phil Hogan said: “We already know 80 per cent of the Green membership is opposed to the Nama proposal from the vote that took place at their party meeting in Athlone. Attempts to misrepresent this outcome subsequently have backfired on the party with its own members.”