How the Greens ended up stranded in the asylum of government

POLITICS: MICHAEL GALLAGHERreviews A Deal with the Devil: The Green Party in GovernmentBy Mary Minihan Maverick House, 265pp. €14.99

‘YOU’RE PLAYING SENIOR hurling now, lads,” was the famous comment from the late Séamus Brennan as Fianna Fáil and the Greens started negotiations for government in the summer of 2007. At that now-distant time the prospect of seats at the cabinet table seemed a very enticing prospect for the Greens. What could possibly go wrong? Everything, as we now know.

The title of Mary Minihan’s page-turner comes from another well-known quote, Ciarán Cuffe’s observation that a deal with Fianna Fáil would be a deal with the devil. Some Greens were wary of the arrangement from the start. The parliamentarians, though, entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the arrangement, with Eamon Ryan, presented here as something of a Pollyanna, and the less effervescent John Gormley convinced that they had the chance to make an effective contribution as ministers.

Things seemed to go well enough until the fateful month of September 2008, when the bottom fell out of the economy – though perhaps this should not have been such a surprise to the Greens as it seems to have been, since we are told that the party had told the bankers before 2007 that mortgage lending had got way out of hand.

From then on the Greens learned what it is to govern in difficult times, best captured in John Gormley’s speech in the Dáil in November 2010 when he told Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore that before long they would find themselves in the asylum of government, their policy choices almost nonexistent, getting no sleep at night and suffering nonstop criticism by day. The current administration may be starting to empathise.

A Deal with the Devilis a thoroughly entertaining read, based on a faithful record of day-to-day events at the time and on what were evidently lengthy postelection interviews with all of the Greens' parliamentarians.

It is certainly not a hatchet job – though Trevor Sargent might choke on one of his home-grown lettuce leaves when he reads that an unnamed TD from another party described him as being “as dull as ditchwater, but so decent”.

Perhaps, the Greens being the party they are, there are no wholly unexpected revelations: the Greens have never been exactly a secretive party, with their critics prone to perceive them as conducting negotiations via Twitter.

The book devotes two chapters to the party’s efforts, as things got ever more tense in the summer of 2010, to have two of its pet – no pun intended – proposals enshrined in legislation: the banning of stag hunting and the regulation of dog-breeding establishments.

Despite running into serious Fianna Fáil backbench resistance, and a degree of opportunism by the then opposition parties, both measures did indeed become law.

Most of the Greens whom Minihan, an Irish Timesjournalist, interviews express resentment at their portrayal during those weeks as more concerned with animals than with people, yet if the party were to list its achievements during its 43 months in government, it seems from this book, those bills would appear at or near the top.

The book does not dwell on or assess the idea of tens of thousands of “green jobs” that Ryan in particular repeatedly insisted could be created with the right policies.

The wheels started to come off after the summer recess in 2010. Gormley, we learn, wanted the party to pull out of government in August or September of that year, and he remained as leader even though the other Green TDs outvoted him on the matter.

The coalition between Fianna Fáil and the Greens was certainly an interesting culture clash, and few would disagree with Ryan’s statement that his party and the Soldiers of Destiny “work in a rather different way”.

Fianna Fáil was sometimes bemused and irritated when its junior partner insisted on putting policy proposals such as Nama to a special delegate conference, and indeed the Greens’ former general secretary Donal Geoghegan is quoted as acknowledging that “you can’t do government by special convention”.

We learn of an amusing incident early in the government’s term, in some ways symbolic of how much the Greens had to learn, when Gormley wandered into what he thought was a precabinet breakfast meeting and was surprised by the unfriendly reception he got, only to learn later that it was the Fianna Fáil ministers’ private get-together.

If there are criticisms to make, one would be that the interviewees seem to have been almost entirely Greens: we are left wondering what Fianna Fáil thought of its partners’ effectiveness. When it came to senior hurling, did the Greens prove to be Kilkenny or Kerry?

Likewise, an index would have helped most readers. The absence of photographs, which would have brought these dramatic events to even more vivid life, is regrettable.

Even without them, though, this lively and well-informed book would make a suitable Christmas present for those of a Green disposition, whether paid-up party members or not, and for all those who were fascinated by events during the extraordinary life of the 30th Dáil and need convincing that they did not imagine them. They did not, and A Deal with the Devilsets it down in highly readable prose.

Michael Gallagher teaches politics at Trinity College Dublin and is coeditor of How Ireland Voted 2011, a study of this year's general election