The Greens haven’t led us to believe that they deserve coalition status

Alison O’Connor (Irish Examiner, Jan 8) tells how the cuddly Greens make a nice, harmless, side salad political option, but do they?

The reality is whether or not the Greens had gone into government in 2007, the country had already passed the point of no return. Not being in that government might have saved some Green TDs but it wouldn’t have saved the country, and the Greens did pay a heavy price for being so ineffective during that government. The problem is not so much the incompetence of that government, it is more the that the Greens seemed gullible and never seemed to have the guts to stand up to their bullying colleagues.

So why should we believe if the Greens were to form part of the next government, they’d be any better, given that Fine Gael has proven it operates to the same low standards of Fianna Fáil?

So why waste a vote on a Green TD who won’t provide any safeguard from the cronyism we’ve seen from this government continuing into the next one?

Can anyone really believe a Green Party member of government would have the guts to implement changes to the expenses system to stop ministers claiming massive expenses for Dublin accommodation rental costs they don’t incur as they long own the property? Or making TDs publish receipts or parties publish proper accounts of where they get their funding from?

Interestingly, while obsessing about climate change, it never seems to have occurred to the Greens that the solution may be design change so that houses in a flooding area have a basement and raised up the living areas, like they do in places like the Netherlands, where they don’t have the luxury of not using precious space.

Should we live in a fantasy world that temperatures are going to fall, when even if all the climate change goals were met or exceeded, we wouldn’t see the result of falling sea levels for decades anyway, or should we start implementing practical solutions now?

A bit of outside the box thinking while still working toward climate change aims, might go a long way to the Greens regaining credibility.

The Green Party has had five years to rewrite its policy book and in all that time, there has been no radical ideas. No leading by example when it comes to political funding. No process to include the public in policy decision-making, be they party members or not. So what’s the point of voting for them?

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London