The Green Party gets wise and sets off on the road to power

THE Green Party is undergoing a quiet transformation. It’s ever so slowly getting realistic in its ambitions for its environmental agenda and slowly becoming more mainstream in its economic and social policy.

The party’s conference in Kilkenny last weekend overwhelmingly endorsed a proposal that it commit itself in the next election to not increasing headline rates of income and corporation tax ‘for the foreseeable future’. It represents a dramatic shift from the Greens’ traditionally high tax policy. The party’s finance spokesman, Dan Boyle, has unapologetically presented this commitment on tax rates as a move designed to insulate the party against political attacks from those who would wish to portray the Greens as dangerous on tax and economic policy.

At the same time as the Greens are becoming more mainstream, the mainstream parties are becoming greener. Policies for which the Greens have long argued on waste reduction, environmental protection and on the need for alternative sources of energy are now being actively implemented by the government and by local authorities. The Greens are being flattered by imitation. Some of this is happening because European regulations and other commitments are compelling our government to meet stiff targets in reducing waste and emissions - or face severe fines. Some of it is happening because concerns about the long-term security of the world’s oil supply, coupled with political instability in many oil-producing nations, have put the need for alternative energy at the top of the international political agenda. It was the main topic, for example, at last week’s European Summit in Brussels.

The large financial package on childcare in December’s budget and the establishment of the Office of the Minister for Children is just one example of how quality-of-life issues are being pushed up the political agenda. All of our political parties, including the Greens, are now singing off the one hymn sheet - or at least out of the same songbook on most of these issues.

Some commentators this weekend argued that what the Greens need to do is to get more stuck into their opponents in order to attract more media attention. This might shore up party morale and reinforce the party with its anti-establishment niche voter but it is not sustainable in the longer term, nor will it attract the additional support the Greens need. Instead of being more vocal or clever what the Greens need to do is become more competent. They will attract more support and more enduring media credit if they develop substantial policy proposals and improve the manner in which they communicate them. The best illustration of this is the glowing tributes which the party spokesperson on Communications and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan, recently garnered for his proposal that an all-party commission should consider Ireland’s future energy needs and for his stance on the Offshore Fisheries Bill. Indeed, it has been striking how often in recent months the Greens have found themselves agreeing with Noel Dempsey, while Labour and Fine Gael (and at times some of his own back benches) have been trenchantly opposing him.

Similarly the Greens should agree with much of what Dick Roche has been doing in the Department of Environment. Mr Roche’s decisions and follow-through on initiatives like the recycling charge for electrical goods and the nitrates directive are the type of things the Greens would love to be doing in government. The Government’s insistence that local authorities move from flat rate annual charges for waste collection to charges on the basis of weight or volume, together with the funding of a network of bring centres, have given rise to a phenomenal growth in recycling. The Government’s Race against Waste campaign has had an impact. We are now reaching recycling rates in this country that even Green politicians couldn’t have hoped for a decade ago.

It is significant that this partial (and it is only partial) convergence of the Green party policy and that of the mainstream parties is happening just a year before an election. The fact that the Greens are taking small steps in from the fringes will assist the rainbow alternative in the election - however, it will also open up some prospect of the Greens actually being in government with Fianna Fáil, if the rainbow doesn’t have enough numbers after the election and the current government doesn’t have a workable majority of its own.

Too much has been made of a reported rise of 2% in the Green Party’s support in one opinion poll published last weekend. The Green Party went down two points in the same poll last month and the margin of error in the poll is 3%. It is absurd, therefore, to be drawing any dramatic conclusions about the Green Party’s support in the next election from this one poll result.

WHAT matters more for the Greens, as it does for all smaller parties, is how their deputies and candidates perform in their individual constituencies. The party has six TDs at the moment. Trevor Sargent, Eamon Ryan and John Gormley should comfortably hold their seats. The party finance spokesperson, Dan Boyle, is also likely to hold his seat in Cork South Central, although that constituency will be particularly competitive. Ciaran Cuffe could lose out in to a resurgent Fine Gael in Dunlaoghaire. Paul Gogarty’s Dublin Mid-West constituency has an extra seat in the next election, but in addition to strong Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin challengers he may also face a threat from an independent in his Lucan base. However, any losses from the sitting deputies could be offset by gains in one of Carlow Kilkenny, Galway West, Clare or Wicklow. There is a real prospect, therefore, that the Greens will have at least as large a contingent in the next Dáil as they have in the current one.

If the current government or the rainbow alternative doesn’t have the numbers after the next election then all types of possibilities open up and one of those is that Fianna Fáil could make an offer to the Greens.

Trevor Sargent now protests strongly that he will not lead the party into government with Fianna Fáil, but the party more generally has not ruled out the prospect. If they genuinely believe in implementing their policy agenda, then the Greens should be keen to seize the opportunity to be in government and have real influence over the following five years when important decisions about the future nature of our economy, our environment and our transport network will have to be made.

It may seem unlikely at this remove but it is possible to envisage a scenario where the Green Party, in government with Fianna Fáil, could hold a cabinet rank ministry for food or for environmental protection or for natural resources and also hold one or two junior or super junior ministries in departments like transport or even finance.

Indeed, some in Fianna Fáil might see an alliance with the Greens in government as good for the country and as an opportunity to reposition their party particularly among the younger electorate. Championing environmentally-friendly policies while emphasising that they can be implemented in a manner consistent with economic progress is, after all, the means used by the new British Conservative leader, David Cameron, to modernise and reposition his party.

Born out of a single-issue protest movement, the Green Party has now begun to get better organised politically and more sophisticated in policy terms. In doing so it is creating options for itself.