Forty years a growing

Let's take a moment to look back. 

 In 1982 I was a teenager, and I read a column by Michael Viney in the Irish Times where he talked about:
“A storehouse economy, non-exploitative approach to nature, land reform, human-scale institutions, alternative technology, a basic, unearned income for all, and the decentralisation of political power.”        

That column led to me joining the Green Party, and attending the first Convention in the Glencree Reconciliation Centre where we agreed our founding principles forty years ago. . My memories of the early days included Esperanto, Basic Income, Acid Rain, our cold damp office on Stephen Street, and then Fownes Street. I remember canvassing for Liam de Siún in Bray in the early 1980s. Back then people left their front door key in the lock on the outside of the front door. Times have changed! I remember Ubi Dwyer storming out of our first convention in Glencree  because some of us had driven there; Maire Mullarney on the Late Late Show, extolling home schooling; Roger Garland keeping Ireland open, and having rows with rural Fianna Fáil TDs; Patricia McKenna annoying the establishment; John Gormley criticising Bertie Ahern on his use of the Government Jet. We still have rows, with others and within!

On reflection I feel we spent too much time railing about what we were against, rather than promoting what we were in favour of. People need a vision to believe in, as well as problems to oppose. So let’s look ahead:

We need to be more propositional, rather than oppositional. We need to get out of our comfort zone, rather than cherish the comfort of like-minded people. We need to check our privilege, and remember that Ireland is one of the wealthiest nations

There’s a few awkward truths we also need to confront. Covid vaccinations rely on the extraordinary advances of modern medicine. Nuclear energy is keeping the lights on in France and other countries. Ukrainians want weapons to fight an evil invasion

I don’t want to suggest that we need to drop our commitments to preventative healthcare, to clean energy, or to peace, but we must accept that what we hold dear is not necessarily held dear by others and we must respect that.  Looking ahead: We need to be a stronger voice for women, for children, for minorities, for marginalised communities and for those less privileged than ourselves. We must be  known for our leadership and vision, rather than our dissent.

We should look to our German, our Austrian, Finnish and Swedish colleagues. We should listen to the concerns of young people advocating change. We need to seek out, listen to, and learn from dissenting voices.

We must work across political divides. It is what I learnt from the Council chamber, but it took me 20 years to learn how to do so. That’s what I now do every day in the European parliament in order to achieve success.

To succeed in the next 40 years we need a better gender balance. We need to be more inclusive of all communities, and I applaud the work of Roderic O’Gorman  and Joe O’Brien  on this. We need more coherent economic and social narratives. Sure, we favour basic income, but then what? We need to have more to say about big data (thanks Ossian), and small businesses, about start-ups and innovation. We need to have more to say about cities, and about towns, and Malcolm Noonan and others are making this happen

To suggest 40 years ago that there were natural limits that we had to live within was radical. It is now generally accepted. What we then called alternative energy is now mainstream. The European Green Deal has been endorsed by the vast majority of European public representatives, and this is what Grace O’Sullivan and I are legislating for in Brussels.

In 1990 John Gormley published a Green Guide for Ireland. He asked whether being green would involve a return to a harsh and spartan existence. In reply he wrote that “We are at a stage of human development where we can combine the technology of the new with the wisdom of the old to make for a better world.” John’s words were prescient then and are relevant now.

Over the next forty years we must change. We require a relationship to the land that replenishes and rejuvenates the soil. We must produce, store and utilise clean energy for everything that we do. We must retrofit our homes to be powerhouses that keep us safe and secure. Our neighbourhoods must be safe and easy to get around for the young and not so young. We must reclaim our streets from the tyranny of car dominance and allow public space, and life to flourish. We must cherish biodiversity, and work with all on protecting our climate. Back then we said that the poverty of two-thirds of the world’s family demands a redistribution of the world’s resources. This is still the case.

Friends, today’s challenges demand cooperation across borders. There are enormous challenges ahead. We know that the challenges of globalisation, of migration, of climate, of Covid, of peace demand cooperation and coordination across the globe. They cannot be solved by the nation-state alone. The green message is a clear one. To take care of this fragile and precious earth we must work as one.

European Parliament update, six months on...

Well, that was quick.

Just over six months into my mandate as a Member of the European Parliament for Dublin, and it has been busy!

I called it the “Climate Change Election” when I launched my campaign last April, and thankfully there’s been some progress on this at the European level.  The headline item has been the announcement of a European Green Deal. First announced by Ursula von der Leyen the new European Commission President early in her mandate, she fleshed this out in more detail in early December, and we’ll see more details emerge by early March, This will fulfil her promise to launch an ambitious programme within one hundred days of taking office. Radical changes are needed in energy, transport, buildings and agriculture to deliver on this. We'll know more in the Spring of 2020 about the level of ambition from the new Commission and Parliament.

For me it has been a steep learning curve. Firstly, the balance of powers between the different European Union institutions have become clearer to me. The European Parliament is an amending legislature. We can’t initiate new laws, but we can modify proposals that come from the European Commission, composed of twenty-seven European Commissioners, including Ireland’s own Phil Hogan who now looks after trade issues, having previously had responsibility for agriculture. Apart from von der Layen it will be interesting to watch two senior Commissioners: Margrethe Vestager from Denmark who leads on digital issues, and Frans Timmermans a former Foreign Affairs Minister of the Netherlands who will look after the implementation of the Green Deal. I sit on the TRAN Committee (short for transport) as well as ITRE (which has responsibility for industry, telecoms, research and energy). I also keep a watching brief on REGI (which deals with urban and regional affairs). All three committees have key roles to play in tackling greenhouse gas emissions.

Remember that the European Union doesn’t and can’t tackle everything: under the principal of ‘subsidiarity’ it can only address issues that the Member States have decided should be dealt with at European level. That means we can’t tackle housing issues, but I can put pressure on the European Investment Bank and other bodies to ramp up their focus on these issues. When it comes to tackling climate change the EU does have an important role: it sets targets and provides support to countries to ensure that they are achieved. For instance the European Performance of Buildings Directive ensures that new buildings have to meet an A energy rating, and there will be more work on this front in the years ahead. I want to try and ensure that local authority homes are retro-fitted with insulation, draught-proofing and new heating systems, to ensure that fuel poverty is tackled, and cold damp homes are a thing of the past.

The Irish Green Party is part of the Greens/European Free Alliance group within the Parliament. We comprise seventy-four members, or almost 10% of the 751 seat Parliament, and we have a pretty good track record in making substantive and considered amendments to proposed laws. Last week I participated in the Transport Committee and we burnt the midnight oil to improve the working conditions and driving times of lorry drivers. A lot of drafting was put into improving road safety and worker’s rights to ensure that drivers get proper breaks and don’t sleep in their cabs for weeks on end. We eventually finished our work at 6:45am. Talk about a baptism of fire! Of course, any changes we make must be signed off by the relevant Transport Ministers from every country in the European Union, and it remains to be seen whether our Minister Shane Ross TD will give these changes the green light.

The European Parliament sits in Brussels in Belgium most weeks, and then in Strasbourg in France one week in four. It is a crazy set-up, involving huge amounts of travel. The French refuse to give up on Strasbourg, so we all hop onto a charter train once a month to head down to Eastern France where the hoteliers rub their hands at the prospect of hundreds of MEPs and their staff arriving for four days. Back in Brussels, I’ve rented an apartment about fifteen minutes by bike away from the Parliament in an area called St.Gilles: it is the Brussels equivalent of Stoneybatter. Rents are cheaper than Dublin, and there’s much more protection for tenants enshrined in law.

I’m trying not to fly over and back every week, and around one trip in four I take the ferry to Holyhead from Dublin Port. From there I take a four-hour long train-ride to London Euston. Then I walk ten minutes down the Euston Road to St. Pancras, and hop on a Eurostar for a two-hour ride to Brussels Midi. This takes about twelve hours from door-to-door. One issue I’m working on in Brussels is to try and ensure rail times are better scheduled and speeds improved. In addition, we need to ensure that air travel pays its fair share of taxes, compared to rail journeys.

Over the last six months we’ve seen the UK head closer to Brexit, now inevitable with the Conservatives winning last week’s election. We’ll lose our UK colleagues, but I suspect there will be renewed efforts by Scottish nationalists to secede from the UK and rejoin the EU. Brexit brings a united Ireland closer. A useful exercise would be to examine how policies in health, education and policing could be coordinated north and south of the border, and how best to address the very real concerns from northern Unionists about being isolated. Hopefully, the Northern Ireland Assembly will reconvene early in the new year.

It has been a roller-coaster of a year. It has been amazing to see so many greens elected around Ireland and Europe, and brilliant to see Joe O’Brien elected as a TD in Dublin Fingal in the recent by-elections. It is great to have my colleague Grace O’Sullivan MEP for Ireland South as a sounding board for ideas and plans. A real personal success for me was to give my first speech as Gaeilge in the Parliament. I couldn’t have done it with fantastic support from my team in Brussels and Dublin. As we head towards 2020 which will bring a General Election in Ireland, I’ll be working on progressing laws to make the Green Deal a reality in Europe; to tackle climate change and bring about a just transition at home, and in Europe. We'll be working closely with our Green councillors hard at work in Councils all over Ireland, and with our TDs Eamon Ryan, Catherine Martin and Joe O'Brien in the Dáil, as well as Pippa Hackett in the Seanad, and Clare Bailey  and Rachel Woods, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in Northern Ireland. 

Nollaig Shona Daoibh!