INSIDE POLITICS:The Green Party's involvement with the most unpopular government on record will cost them dearly, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
AS THEY gathered in Waterford last night for their annual convention, Green Party TDs and members were in a self-congratulatory mood for having managed to extract an extra junior ministry from Taoiseach Brian Cowen in his reshuffle. By playing a clever political hand, five of the six Green TDs have now achieved ministerial office in the lifetime of the Coalition.
The Greens argue, with some justice, that an extra Minister with the new responsibilities will give them more political muscle. Ciarán Cuffe with responsibility for planning and sustainable transport reform, among other things, and Mary White with equality and human rights will certainly be in a position to put more of a Green stamp on key areas of policy.
However, the party might do well to ponder how the sharp manoeuvring looks to those outside the political bubble. So far, the public reaction appears to be scorn at what is regarded as a naked “jobs for the boys” play by the Greens, rather than admiration for the way the party managed to pull ministerial rabbits out of the hat. What was missing from the entire reshuffle, and the Greens’ role in it, was a clear signal from the country’s political leaders that they understand the depth of the pain being suffered by so many ordinary people, particularly those who have lost their jobs or those who can’t find a job.
The roof has caved in on the Irish economy over the past two years and the tough measures required to rescue it are not nearly over. Further stringent spending cuts and tax increases are inevitable in next year’s budget, and the year after that, in order to get the public finances back into some sort of shape.
As if that is not bad enough, billions of euro will have to be spent on the recapitalisation of the Irish banks in the next few weeks.
While there may be a reluctant acceptance by the public of the need to rescue AIB and Bank of Ireland, the allocation of vast amounts of money required to keep the formerly delinquent Anglo Irish Bank afloat will inevitably prompt public rage. In that context the whole reshuffle looks like an exercise in moving deckchairs on the Titanic and the spectacle of the Greens using the opportunity to grab an extra deckchair may only seal the party’s fate come the next election. Of course the Greens see it differently.
The party’s TDs are confident they are on the side of the angels and believe the extra ministerial post will give them an opportunity to implement more of their policies which they are convinced will be good for the country in the long term. The Greens point to what they believe are significant policy achievements in Government, despite the overwhelming economic problems that have dominated most of its tenure.
Reform of the planning process through the Planning Bill, new building regulations, more emphasis on renewable energy, local government reform, the second house tax and the move to water metering are among those achievements, as are the Government commitment to reform the political system and introduce directly elected mayors in major cities beginning with Dublin.
The problem for the party is that the public appears oblivious to the Green role in getting policy implemented, apart from ones that might be unpopular in certain quarters such as the ban on stag hunting or the introduction of water metering.
The results of last year’s local elections when the party was all but obliterated showed that the voters seem determined to punish the party for being involved with Fianna Fáil, regardless of what they achieve or don’t achieve in office. It is a perennial problem for any small party in a coalition to get the public to focus on its policy achievements.
During the Labour Party’s involvement in the coalition with Fianna Fáil after the 1992 election party advisers kept a chart on which they ticked off each of their policy achievements arising from the programme for government.
That didn’t make a whit of difference to the public hostility to the party’s decision to go into office with Fianna Fáil.
Even the decision to pull out of the coalition and become part of a rainbow government led by Fine Gael didn’t change the public perception. The voters waited in the long grass for five years and the party lost half its seats in 1997.
The Greens are in a much more difficult position than that.
Their involvement in the most unpopular government on record since opinion polling began in this country is going to cost them dearly.
The party will be extremely lucky if it manages to hold on to half its seats in the next election. The real battle will be to avoid getting wiped out. The prospect of that happening has encouraged many Fianna Fáil TDs to believe that the Greens will hang in to the bitter end and keep the Coalition on life support until the summer of 2012 come what may. There are a number of problems about that scenario, the biggest one being that it would inevitably mean doom for the Greens.
The fact that Fianna Fáil itself is becoming increasingly unstable as more of the party’s TDs lose confidence in Cowen’s leadership is something the Greens have to weigh very carefully. They have to decide on an exit strategy of their own to give them at least some chance of survival.
Having got the extra junior Minister they have to fulfil their side of the bargain by remaining loyal for the foreseeable future, through the banking recapitalisation and even the next budget, but after that the party requires a bold plan for survival, assuming that events don’t bring the whole edifice down in the meantime.