Ahern attacks Green Party for not ‘standing up and delivering’

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern launching a blistering attack on the Green Party over the weekend, dismissing its members as people who “don’t really understand” politics.

And he repeated earlier warnings by Tánaiste and PD leader Michael McDowell that the economy would go downhill in the hands of the opposition.

Referring to the forthcoming general election, Mr Ahern said: “The world won’t end if Fianna Fáil don’t win, but the economy will.”

The dire economic warning was an ad lib by Mr Ahern in a speech which sought to emphasise Fianna Fáil’s “green” credentials.

Promising the Government would publish its climate change strategy at Easter, Mr Ahern proceeded to outline several environmental initiatives which the coalition would look to implement in the months ahead.

He said his party would seek to protect the environment while also protecting the economy.

“We in this party are idealistic people, we’re realistic people and we know what we have to do,” Mr Ahern said.

He then went off-script and went on the attack, and although he didn’t mention the Green Party by name, it was clear where he was directing his criticism.

“We’re not going to talk about things. People take out [ideas from] books around the world with no idea whether they can do it here. There’s too many of those people in this country. We’re about doing things, standing up and delivering.

“And no more policies like people who’ve just come into politics in recent years and don’t really understand it.

“Remember this, ladies and gentlemen: we are the green party in more ways than one.”

Mr Ahern was addressing the Ogra Fianna Fáil conference in Galway, and that section of the speech was met with loud applause.

He went on to criticise the opposition more generally when summarising.

“They haven’t got an idea between them and the only thing that matters to me is — and remember this — the world won’t end if Fianna Fáil don’t win, but the economy will, and we will be back to the old slowcoach economy.”

Meanwhile, Mr Ahern said the Government has ordered Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus to meet a portion of their fuel needs from renewable energy sources.

It is also preparing a mandatory programme of energy efficiency measures for the public sector.

The Taoiseach said that protecting and preserving the environment was “one of the most important issues facing humanity”.

Environmental sustainability would have to be put “at the heart of all future development”, he stressed.

As part of this, the bus companies have been ordered with immediate effect to use biofuel to meet at least 5% of fuel needs for their existing fleets. The companies had been instructed “to plan to achieve a 30% biofuel blend in all their new buses”, he said.

Biofuel is produced from biomass — recently living organisms or their by-products — and therefore is a renewable energy source.