Irish Examiner editorial comment: The Green Party - Issues still important

LAST spring gorse fires, many of them illegally set, raged on our mountains for weeks on end.

Though it is illegal to start gorse fires between March 31 and August 31 swathes of forestry and scrubland were destroyed by fire in that period.

This had a devastating impact as these crimes coincided with the peak of the breeding season for so much wildlife. We tolerate these, and so many more, environmental crimes in a way that does us no credit.

The Green Party deserves credit for trying to change public attitudes on these and many other environmental issues.

Their obliteration must be a concern for anyone alert to the myriad threats to the natural world we depend on. That absolute rejection, and the limits imposed by recession, will make it harder to get environmental issues on to the political agenda.

The Greens sometimes behaved more like those who imagined themselves chosen zealots rather than elected public representatives.

By doing this they alienated tens if not hundreds of thousands of voters who have a deep and natural empathy with their core policies. They have paid a very heavy price for this and their ill-judged liaison with Fianna Fáil.

Let us hope they learn that lesson as they begin to rebuild their party because the issues they highlight are far, far too important to be sidelined.