FF has form for exploiting smaller parties

LIKE a bashful couple edging towards each other for their first kiss, Fianna Fáil and the Greens continue to play out their strange Victorian courtship.

The pair disapprovingly watched each other for years, not realising they might actually like the other until electoral fate threw them together.

The intensity of six days locked in Government Buildings proved too much for the purity of the Greens and they fled the looming embrace with their principles in tact.

However, they realised the moral high ground might be safe, but they were only going to change the view from it if they got into bed with Fianna Fáil and so decided to woo their soldier of destiny all over again.

John Gormley was the unlikely come-on for the operation as he went on national radio to tell the Taoiseach, “give us a call”. This followed hot on the heels of Bertie Ahern using a Sunday newspaper to send an open love letter to the eco-warriors, even praising their “sincerity”.

In truth both sides had been manoeuvring behind the scenes all weekend with the flow of more policy papers between the two. The Green leadership eager to prove to its members it was only green on the environment, not negotiating tactics.

The much vaunted “summit” between the two leaders should be an interesting affair as Trevor Sargent got under the skin of Mr Ahern like no one else in the outgoing Dáil, with the possible exception of Joe Higgins.

The Green leader particularly enraged the Taoiseach by attempting to raise Celia Larkin’s appointment to a State body in the chamber.

Mr Gormley walked the tricky line of trying to sound keen, without appearing desperate as the party awaited Mr Ahern’s call.

“If he rings we’ve said we will listen. We left on very amiable terms,” he said fondly remembering the “rapport” between the two.

The Greens also know with the two rump PDs and four bought-off Independents, Mr Ahern can muster the 84 votes needed to confirm him as Taoiseach on Thursday, especially if he dangles the prize of Ceann Comhairle over the opposition.

Labour’s deputy leader Brendan Howlin made it clear the party would back one of its TDs taking the chair. He has not ruled himself out of such a move.

Sinn Féin decided to make their “no one likes us, we don’t care” image into a virtue. “Our critical interests here are not the particular bums on seats, our real focus is on the programme for government,” said Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin.

Fianna Fáil has form for turning the heads of ambitious smaller parties, only to take what it wants and leave the former partner’s reputation destroyed.

Fifteen years after Dick Spring led Labour into an unhappy shotgun marriage with Albert Reynolds the party can still command only half the support it enjoyed prior to the fateful union.

Far from breaking the mould of Irish politics, the PDs are all but broken after ten years with Mr Ahern.

The Greens go into any embrace with their eyes open.