Me Blog!

I’ve mentioned here before that I pretty much hate Fianna Fail and probably more so the Green Party. It wasn’t always like this. Now that both parties are in power together I can hate them both equally. Which is nice. (Actually it isn’t really. I’m starting to fear reading the news in the morning to see what they have dreamed up overnight.) but regardless:

I’m as environmentally conscious as the next person. I recycle whatever I can and I try to be as energy efficient as I can. Just because I happen to be environmentally conscious does not for one minute mean that I support or endorse the Green Party. If you care about the environment it does not automatically mean that you should support the Green Party either.

But what about the Green Party of Ireland in their new found position as members of government?

They have become a bit drunk on power certainly and that’s not helped by one of them being given the position of Minister for the Environment. Their inclusion in Government has come at a price. It really is politics at it’s finest when you consider what the Greens had to do to become members of the Irish Government. They thought they could make a difference but they have been given a major smackdown. Bertie Ahern has really put them in their place and now they are paying the price.

John Gormley said there was no need for any more than two incinerators in Ireland. And one of them certainly wasn’t going to be in his backyard.

Well Bertie proved him wrong by saying there will be no less than 4 built and one of them will be in Gormley’s backyard. He has no choice to comply if he wants to stay in Government. He could have decided to resign of course, but being just a few weeks into the upper echelons of ministerial politics pretty much forced him to reconsider. He was forced to ‘put up or shut up.’ But that’s what politics is all about.

Then there was the whole lightbulb controvesy. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: It is a knee jerk reaction to a potential energy crisis. And it is a plan that certainly hasn’t been thought through. My personal thoughts on this is that our Minister for the Environment has to be seen to do something and not seen as Fianna Fail’s lapdog so he is making up policies that he thinks will make him look good and toeing the Green Party line.

But both John Gormley and Eamon Ryan are Fianna Fail’s lap dogs. That was proven when they had to agree to support the Government’s stance on the upcoming referendum on whether the Irish people will ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.

Both Green Party ministers have stated that they will support a ‘Yes’ vote on the referendum. You might think that is their choice but it goes completely against their parties stance on the treaty (I would link to to it but a search on their site draws a complete blank.) The official line (as I understand) of the Green Party is that they are against the Lisbon Treaty. Primarily because they consider that under the terms of the treaty, Ireland could theoretically lose our automatic right to have an E.U. commissioner and consequentially have less say in the political role of the European Union despite being a senior member nation.

The Green Party called a meeting to decide what to do as their leader (and Minister for the Environment) is a member of Government and has a kind of conflict of interest. What happened was that 63% of the Green Party members that voted supported the motion to accept the Treaty of Lisbon. However under their own rules the party needs at least a two thirds majority (66%) for a motion to be passed.

Nonetheless the Green Party should at least be commended for discussing the meeting as they are the only political party in Ireland to do so.

What has become apparent is that Fianna Fail have succeeded in fragmenting another political party to keep themselves in power. The Lisbon Treaty and the incinerator fiascos have proven just to what lengths Fianna Fail will go to just to ensure that their coalition partners know just exactly who is the boss.

For those of you with short term memory loss, there was another small political party that entered a coalition with Fianna Fail some years back and look what happened to them. They currently have two sitting T.D.s and one is the Minister for Health which is with no question of a doubt the worst ministerial position any one can be lumped with. They previously had 8 T.Ds until Fianna Fail effectively destroyed them by forcing them against their party convictions. They became almost as much Fianna Fail as Fianna Fail themselves.

A coalition government with Fianna Fail is without a doubt a poisoned chalice yet the Green Party are willing to take the risk. And just like the Progressive Democrats before them, they are quite willing to take their chances. It’s too late though. They are pandering to their own grandiose ideas and losing credibility by the day while being forced to take the Government stance. No matter the conflict to their party ethos which in turn is exemplifying the loss of their credibility.

It would appear that Bertie seemed to tire of his blue and yellow lap dog and just replaced them with a green coloured one instead. I for one wouldn’t like to be there when the new green lapdog eventually pisses on the expensive fireplace rug.

However, regarding the treaty itself; I wonder if we will have a repeat of the Nice Treaty? Again, for those with short memories that was another European Union treaty for which a referendum was held in Ireland to ratify it as it required an amendmend to the Irish Constitution (24th amendment bill). The people of Ireland rejected it but the government decided that they didn’t like the result and that it made them look bad in front of our European neighbours so they decided to have another referendum to be sure that we were sure. Just to be clear on this, the original referendum on the Nice Treaty required an amendment to the Irish Constitution that could have potentially have had an effect on our status as neutral country. By the time the second referendum on the Nice Treaty was called, a subsequent amendment was made that ensured our tradition of neutrality would stay in effect. This ended up as the 26th amendment to the Irish Constitution.

Drawing comparisons to the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty may seem to be Deja Vu but the Green Party might do well to look at what happened to the Progressive Democrats and see if they can see the tell tale signs that led to their demise and relate their findings to themselves.