‘Greens must break the glass ceiling’

GREEN Party leader Trevor Sargent last night pledged to give power to the grass roots through directly elected mayors as he accused Fianna Fáil of being in the back pocket of developers.

With a spate of opinion polls showing the party poised to hold a pivotal role in the next Dáil, Mr Sargent was keen to focus the attention of his TDs and activists on the compromises they would have to make in order to share national power.

The Galway gathering heard Mr Sargent set out his aim of decentralising decision making as he again took a swipe at the “cosy” connections between the Government and property speculators.

He expressed alarm at low planning standards and lax regulations which he claimed stemmed from political back-scratching.

“The problem lies in the way politics is funded in this country. What other explanation can there be for the the bizarre Government acceptance of low standards in housing construction. Why else would a wealthy cohort of developers and speculators bankroll Fianna Fáil in the infamous Galway races tent?” he said.

Mr Sargent said in order to “break the glass ceiling” preventing local control of the environment and housing, the party must first get into Government.

He pointed to the success of London’s directly elected Mayor Ken Livingstone in pushing forward an environmentally friendly anti-car agenda as something for Irish Greens to emulate.

Mr Sargent was determined to use the conference to try and sell an image of the Greens as a serious contender for Coalition power rather than a one-song pressure group.

With polls showing they could push the current number of six Green TDs into double figures, Mr Sargent was using the three day conference to set out his party’s price for propping up a Fine Gael-Labour alternative Government.

Though refusing to formally join the Rainbow Alliance, Mr Sargent has all but ruled out leading the Greens into Government with Fianna Fáil.

He warned the conference’s 300 delegates the imminent general election would be a test of the Greens’ political maturity.

“For as long as we are outside Government — for as long as we are not sitting around a Cabinet table, there is a glass ceiling over us,” he said.

In a bid to acclimatise the party to the possibilities and compromises of power, the key note foreign speaker at today’s session is former German Green cabinet member Renate Kunast.

German Greens provoked outrage among traditional supporters when they supported their country’s military involvement in Kosovo in 1998.

Consumer rights campaigner Eddie Hobbs was also set to address the conference on the dangers of allowing the economy to rely on oil.