Sir, – The Green Party was severely punished for propping up the coalition government that brought us the bank bailout and initiated the austerity programme continued by successive governments since. It lost all its seats in 2011 and won only two in 2016. In considering whether to join Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in coalition, therefore, the Greens should consider their narrow win of 12 seats in the latest election and note who got them there.
Only one TD was elected on the first count. Their next TD made it through on the fifth count. The rest squeezed through on the sixth to 15th counts. Seven of the TDs were elected without reaching the quota and, of those, four were ultimately over 1,000 votes short when declared elected. In nine of the 12 constituencies in which Green candidates were elected, Sinn Féin candidates topped the polls and were elected on the first count.
Where the transfers came from that got these Green TDs elected is significant. Almost two-thirds of the transfers came from Labour, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats and People Before Profit. The Greens also got transfers from the Socialist Party and Rise. The Greens should note that it was voters for change that got them over the threshold in the latest election. Propping up the two establishment parties in pursuit of a Green agenda at the expense of the social and economic reform that is required in this country will not only damage that agenda, to which most left-leaning voters subscribe, but consign the Greens to another electoral disaster when the next election comes around. Any party that continues to support the alternating system of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that has reigned here for almost a century will be swallowed by it and consigned to the dustbin of history. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN LEAKE,
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Dublin 6W.