Gormley rules out pact with Fianna Fáil

GREEN PLAN FOR DUBLIN:THE LAST European seat in Dublin is "very much up for grabs", but the Green Party is not willing to enter a transfer pact with Fianna Fáil to ensure a Government candidate gets it, party leader John Gormley has said.

Speaking at the launch of the party’s “Vision for Dublin” yesterday, Mr Gormley simply urged supporters to give second preferences to pro-European candidates.

He also said he believed the party’s candidate for Europe, Senator Deirdre De Búrca could make up enough ground to secure the final seat in Dublin. Polls put Ms De Búrca at 6 per cent, but the party had made the 3 per cent jump necessary in a small space of time before and could do so again, Mr Gormley said.

He said the party wanted to focus on local issues, but that hadn’t happened. The lack of debate was a source of frustration for the party, he said.

“Not once has Enda Kenny intervened in rezoning issues, indeed he said to his councillors that he would join them in a court case against me for intervening in his native town of Castlebar, where there was total overzoning,” he said.

He also suggested that “high profile people” would come out in the next day or so to say “the Greens are good in Government”.

The party’s Dublin plan contains proposals including doubling the time for pedestrians to cross at traffic lights, a 30km speed limit in residential areas, trees on every residential street, a Liffey Valley National Park, more allotments and community gardens and new Luas lines from Poolbeg to Rathfarnham and Tallaght to Saggart. It also includes a solar powered swimming pool at the old Dún Laoghaire Baths.