Power and principles separate bedfellows
In perhaps the most downbeat assessment heard on a programme for government from one of its own architects, negotiator Dan Boyle said: “It is not a great document, it may not even be a good document, but it does contain good elements and those elements come from us.”
His decidedly partial enthusiasm was no doubt due to the way the list of priorities and targets in the 85-page tome so closely mirrors the Fianna Fáil manifesto, indeed, large chunks of it appeared to have been cut and pasted from Bertie Ahern’s election platform wholesale.
Hardly surprising, given that FF outrepresents the Greens 13:1 in the Dáil and does not strictly need them to command a majority after buying off a string of Independents.
The Green Party admits it failed to make much, or any, impact at all on the roads programme, hospital co-location or the US use of Shannon, but insisted their influence would radiate out from the three strongholds they claim to have nailed down in the areas of environment, energy and local council reform.
“This is about being in government or out of it, rather than a checklist for government,” Mr Boyle added as the Green leadership tried to talk up their impact on the incoming government in order to get ratification from their members.
On road building, Fianna Fáil has driven a coach and horses through the Greens’ high ideals just as surely as the new administration will slice a motorway round the sacred site of Tara.
On the list of five key transport priorities, protecting the environment comes a lowly fifth behind commuter choice and reducing congestion.
Though the fig leaf of a “multi-criteria analysis” of all transport projects to assess their environmental impact was offered as a crumb from Fianna Fáil’s table, the Transport 21 agenda was endorsed in full.
The Greens did make inroads in the area of climate change though, here again, they have fallen far short of their aims.
They secured a target for reducing Irish greenhouse gas emissions by 3% a year and the release of an annual report on progress in combating global warming, which they claimed would not just amount to more hot air as a Climate Change Commission would be set up to pinpoint action.
The pledges on renewable energy and investment leading to a third of all electricity coming from these sources by 2020 was just recycling from the FF platform, as is the pledge to boost energy efficiency in homes.
Education was one area being trumpeted by the Greens as they insisted they had prized €350 million out of FF, which will give each child with special needs the right to an individual teaching plan and specifically target pupils with autism. Money will also go into expanding the number of adult literacy training places by 4,000.
On tax, the Greens insist they scored highly with a commission on how to overhaul the system in relation to environmental needs. Though the key FF vote-winning “auction politics” of wide-ranging tax cuts, and a backdated stamp duty abolition “bribe” to first-time buyers, goes ahead unchecked.
On the environmentalists’ core policy doctrine of carbon tax, the compromise was so woolly it could probably stand in a field and bleat. The levy will be introduced “during the lifetime of this government”, but nobody knows when or how much it would be.
Shannon is not even mentioned in the document, but the Greens are claiming success in tightening up the wording on Irish opposition to extraordinary rendition — though what real effect it will have on any CIA flights using the Republic for transportation purposes must be open to question.
A directly elected mayor for Dublin is to be brought in by 2011 and a discussion paper on local government reform will appear within six months. A new independent electoral commission will monitor standards in public life and look into political funding, but it hardly comes close to the ban on corporate donations the Greens championed until days ago.
The Greens ran up the white flag on health as all ground was surrendered to the Fianna Fáil/PD agenda of getting extra beds through private facilities on public hospital sites.
A commitment against a common EU defence policy was also claimed by the Greens, but FF said it was heading in that direction anyway.
Fianna Fáil rolled over their junior partners across the economic front and even into the Greens’ most cherished areas of roads and climate change.
The Greens freely acknowledge it is a flawed deal from their perspective but better than the impotence of another five years on the opposition benches. No Green party can hope for power while keeping all, or indeed most, of its principles intact.
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