In his speech to the Dáil for the changeover of Taoiseach on Saturday, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan drew on a metaphor from the World Cup.
It’s only halftime in Government, he told deputies, and Micheál Martin is handing the captain’s armband to Leo Varadkar.
And the catchline? A similar team will be running out on to the pitch for the second half.
In its first stint in government from 2007 to 2011, the Greens reshuffled towards the end of the government. It left its two senior minister in situ, but Ciarán Cuffe and Mary White (a new appointment) came in in February 2010 as Trevor Sargent stepped down.
Now though, the Greens re-emerge from the midterm shake-up with exactly the same lineup as it had going into it. Continuity seems to be the order of the day.
It does make sense on one level. The party can argue that it reflects its claim that the Greens have done so well in Government that no change is needed. In addition, the party’s whole focus is policy (even though it has experienced its fair share of personality politics in the past few years) and its leadership will argue that Covid was a disruptive influence and stymied the efforts of its Ministers to effect the changes they want to make.
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The party is bigger and more experienced now. It has three full ministries, one super junior (Pippa Hackett) and three Ministers of State. All of them can be said to have made an impact, though the likes of Roderic O’Gorman (Minister for Children), Hackett (Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity) and Joe O’Brien (Minister of State for Community Development) have only really come to the fore during 2022.
That said, sometimes change is desirable to refocus policy or priorities, or even to inject some energy into the ministerial ranks. Many of the Green backbench TDs could easily slot into a ministerial role.
But it’s not the party’s style and it’s not the leader’s style. He’s not a fan of conflict and you cannot see him taking those kind of hard chaw personal decisions.
So how have the Greens done this time round? Eamon Ryan likes to quote Samuel Beckett’s saying: “Try again. Fail Again. Fail Better.”
The party got a huge amount of its priority policies into the Programme for Government and – unlike in 2007 – got a lot of funding to back it up. Spending on transport is at a ratio of 2:1, favouring public transport over cars. In addition, 20 per cent of the transport budget has been ring-fenced for active and sustainable travel.
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The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and the Climate Action Plan are now a reality. So is an ambitious afforestation plan worth €2 billion in the long term. We have seen the introduction of one of the Green’s longest-standing policies: basic income. Catherine Martin has brought it in a limited way for artists even though not everyone is agreed on the merit of this payment.
Roderic O’Gorman has seen nothing but turbulence in his two years as a Minister – especially with the huge influx of refugees into Ireland in 2022 – but has survived by dint of a hard work ethic and an increasingly hard-nosed attitude.
But, ultimately, the party is not going to achieve what it set out to do. It has already revised downwards the number of EVs that will be on the road in Ireland in 2030. The prospect of having 500,000 homes insulated to Ber B2 standard by the same year seems remote. The first blocks are in place for offshore renewables. The Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 is important but the huge infrastructure required (including locating and upgrading ports) is not going to happen by 2030.
The overall target is a 51 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 compared with 2018 levels. Unfortunately, emissions have increased over the past two years and there does not seem to be the kind of public buy-in to the (painful) changes that will have to be made (recent Irish Times opinion polls, which show a reluctance to pay for certain measures, accurately reflect the public mood).
The big electoral test for the Greens (among those who are likely to support the party) will be showing it has made a difference in terms of the environment, climate change, biodiversity and climate justice. It has 2½ years to do that. It may be the same team running out on to the pitch, but the players are going to have to change their tactics – and up their tempo – if they are to snatch a victory by 2025.
