Reshuffle has buoyed spirits among Green grassroots

The Green Party is on a high at the moment but there would be little surprise if a PD-style fate awaited them in the next general election, writes MARY MINIHAN

ANGRY CROWDS of rural campaigners, including some on horseback in full hunting regalia, gathered outside as the Green Party went through the motions at their weekend convention.

“We are a party that is committed to maintaining rural life,” Green leader John Gormley insisted inside, while outside protesters jeered as he was derided and denounced as “a fella on a bicycle in Dublin telling you how to run a farm”.

Gormley identified their complaints, as he understood them, as being centred on “the planning Bill . . . stag hunting, the dogs Bill and turf-cutting”. The protesters made no secret of their intention to lobby Fianna Fáil backbenchers aggressively against Green-sponsored legislation. Still raw in the aftermath of the reshuffle, those backbenchers could be in the mood to provide a collective receptive ear. The convention also heard that Fianna Fáil would be reluctant to comply with the insistence of the Greens that corporate donations to political parties be banned by early 2011. This was suggested by Green activist Gary Fitzgerald, who referred to Fianna Fáil as “not our political allies in Government but our dyed-in-the-wool political enemies”.

The reshuffle has buoyed spirits among the Green grassroots because the party secured two new junior Ministers, Ciarán Cuffe and Mary White. The concession to the junior Coalition partners has had the opposite effect on the Fianna Fáil rank-and-file, with Taoiseach Brian Cowen sinking the ministerial ambitions of some long-serving, traditionally loyal deputies, probably for ever.

Still minus a title, they fear their chances of re-election are slim given their attachment to a deeply unpopular Government and, in some cases, the difficulties associated with changing constituency boundaries. This very real loss of hope and sense of hurt, which could yet destabilise an already weakened administration, was breezily dismissed by Gormley at the weekend. “I’m sure they will move on in time,” he said.

Delegates fairly fizzed with the novelty and excitement of addressing two more members of their small parliamentary party team as “Minister”, but there was an acknowledgement that the organisation remains an urban rather than a rural movement. As deputy leader and newly appointed Minister of State Mary White said in her conference address, she is “the only rural TD in this party”. The other five deputies are all Dublin-based.

And it is in constituencies outside the capital, such as White’s of Carlow-Kilkenny, that anti-Green lobbying will be most rigorous. The three Fianna Fáil TDs in Carlow-Kilkenny, MJ Nolan, Bobby Aylward and John McGuinness, have already gone on the record about their unhappiness. The disgruntled Fianna Fáil deputies may consider White’s particular junior ministerial brief, with its responsibility for equality, human rights and integration, relatively harmless (although the Greens genuinely regard it as hugely important). But one to watch is the fall-out from the appointment of a Dún Laoghaire-based architect and town planner, Ciarán Cuffe, who has been given responsibility for planning and other issues in his junior ministerial brief.

Cuffe told the convention many of his friends from college had spent their entire careers with architectural firm Murray Ó Laoire, which went into liquidation last week. He said Gormley, as Minister for the Environment, was “doing great work to put manners on recidivist rezoners” and pledged to work closely with him in the area of land use and planning.

How this will go down in the rural Fianna Fáil heartlands, or what remains of them, should be interesting to observe. However, the party is not safe in Dublin either.

Gormley described the Greens as “the most resilient small party in the history of the State”, having been born before and outliving the Progressive Democrats. But there would be little surprise in political circles if a PD-style fate awaited the party in the next general election, with Green councillors in last year’s locals perhaps getting a bitter taste of what is to come. The party has no representation at council level in Dublin.

While there was some evidence of delegates being distracted by the sparkling bauble of a second junior ministry, there was a level of acceptance, even among the most upbeat, that the general election could devastate the party. Delegates tended though to adopt an attitude that would be incomprehensible to most Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael followers.

“We’re not going to be annihilated, I can tell you that. It doesn’t matter what the electoral result is. You have to understand the philosophy that underlies this party. We’re a party that believes deeply in the issues that we’re pursuing,” Gormley said. He spun the protests outside as a healthy sign the Greens were punching above their weight in Government. “I’ve been on enough protests myself over the years,” he said, in reference to the days when the Greens were the quintessential party of protest. There was little nostalgia for those days, however, with delegates talking about the Greens now being a “party for adults”.

The grown-up reality is that the survival of none of the party’s TDs is assured, although many delegates insisted the manner in which Trevor Sargent handled his resignation as good as guarantees his return in Dublin North.

Retaining their seats in Dublin South East, Dublin South, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin Mid-West and Carlow-Kilkenny will provide huge challenges.