Madam, – Michael A O’Connor (March 21st) appears to assert that the Green Party was at least equally responsible for the wreckage that is now the Irish nation.
How can this be based on fact? Fianna Fáil was in power for the majority of the last 20 years and steered the country into a crash long before the 2007 election when the Greens were first given a say in government.
Mr O’Connor is correct in saying the electorate has spoken and that the Greens have been swept from power. However, the decisions of the electorate should not be taken as wisdom. After all, it was the electorate which consistently voted for Fianna Fáil, even as recently as 2007.
The Green Party’s policies were an underweight counterbalance to the short-term policies of Fianna Fáil and the vested interests that drove it. To suggest that Green policies, rather than those of Fianna Fáil, have led the “planet” to disaster is indeed delusional. To suggest that they are not important indicates that the value of long-term thinking has not yet been accepted.
If the voters don’t learn, then neither will their government. – Yours, etc,