Green Party TDs to consider FG-FF invitation to join negotiations

Green Party TDs will meet via teleconference again on Thursday to consider the invitation from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to join negotiations on a programme for government, as a debate rages within the party and the wider green movement over a coalition with the two bigger parties.

The Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaders have written to Green leader Eamon Ryan, asking him to join talks on a new government, conceding many of the party’s 17 key demands and promising a willingness to discuss the others.

The two parties’ feedback drew a mixed response from the Greens however, exposing the divisions over coalition which have simmered in recent weeks.

The party’s TDs met via teleconference on Wednesday and agreed to delay any response to the invitation to join talks, with a spokesman saying only that they would meet again on Thursday to consider the question.

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Privately, some Green sources said they believed there was enough in the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael document to proceed to negotiations, but others were unconvinced, complaining that the big parties had not unequivocally committed to meeting the Greens’ key demand of a reduction in carbon emissions of 7 per cent a year.

Mr Ryan is thought to be in favour of opening talks, but there is resistance among some of his TDs and in the wider organisation. However, influential environmental lobby groups, such as the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, said they believed talks on government should now proceed.

Writing in today's Irish Times, the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin says he wants to work with the Greens to "tease out through talks the specific actions that would be taken to achieve at least an average 7 per cent a year reduction in carbon emissions".