A bad day all round for the Greens

THERE are two ways of looking at Finance Minister Brian Lenihan’s statement on Irish Nationwide.

One is that, by saying he wanted a report on CEO Michael Fingleton’s lucrative bonus and pension arrangements “within one month”, he was essentially kicking the issue to touch.

The second is that, by saying he wanted the board to “review” the position of senior management and brief him next week, he is upping the pressure on the building society to force Mr Fingleton out.

Whatever the case, neither scenario makes the Green Party look good right now.

Last Saturday, Green senator Dan Boyle called on Mr Fingleton to go, saying his conduct had been “a disgrace”. On Sunday, party leader John Gormley echoed that call, saying Mr Fingleton’s position was untenable.

To date in Government, the Greens have been very skilful in the timing of such blunt, categorical statements. They make them when they know the Government is more or less decided on a certain course of action — thereby making the Greens look prescient and wise when this course of action is announced.

But, of course, no firm actions were announced yesterday — and this appears to have caught the Greens by surprise.

The Opposition were certainly surprised, expressing incredulity that the Government was happy to wait a month for information which Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin believed could be obtained within a few hours.

After all, the State has guaranteed Irish Nationwide — putting billions of taxpayers’ money at risk in the process — and should therefore be entitled to access such information immediately, they argued.

But a Government spokesman insisted that the coalition had to establish the facts of the matter and that this could take time. The Government couldn’t just “rush in” and make snap judgements based on “hearsay”, he added.

Although it was not his intention, the Government spokesman was effectively saying the Greens had based their demand for Mr Fingleton to go on such hearsay.

A spokesman for the Greens then had the difficult task of standing by Mr Gormley’s original stance while appearing happy with Mr Lenihan’s statement.

While he did want Mr Fingleton to resign, Mr Gormley recognised it was primarily an issue for Mr Lenihan and was satisfied with his actions to date, the Green spokesman said.

“Let’s wait and see [what happens],” he added.

Off the record, one Government source suggested Fianna Fáil and the Greens were united in wanting Mr Fingleton’s departure, but the Greens had simply been naive in pushing for his resignation before the coalition had its facts straight.

The charge of naivety wouldn’t have rested comfortably with the Greens. But if that was embarrassing, worse was to come. Mr Gormley’s choice as chairman of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, businessman Gerry McCaughey, was forced to step down last night.

Mr McCaughey had used a loophole to reduce his tax bill, which was perfectly legal but politically damaging.

At least on the Nationwide issue, the Greens can rebound — if Mr Fingleton does step down, the party can claim vindication. But Mr McCaughey’s resignation is damage it cannot undo. A bad day all round.