Ouch, that hurt.
Two weeks after the event it all seems fairly clear.
The Green Party went into Government with Fianna Fáil. The IMF came in, and the electorate kicked out Fianna Fáil and anyone associated with them, and that included the Greens.
I had thought people would boot out Fianna Fáil back in 1997, when I first ran for the Dáil in Dublin Central. It all seemed stunningly obvious at the time. The Tribunals had been set up, and everyone was talking about corruption. Even the late Jim Mitchell had taken £5,000 from Ben Dunne, surely Fianna Fáil AND Fine Gael were going to take a hit in Dublin Central and elsewhere. Fat Chance.
In 2002, when I ran for office in Dún Laoghaire I was convinced that Fianna Fáil were for the high jump. Nope, back they came.
2007, and the mask appeared to be slipping. They came back with 78 seats. "The boom is getting boomier" said Bertie Ahern. If you can't beat them, work with them, and that's what we did four years ago.
The numbers meant that Fianna Fáil were going to be back in office anyway in 2007, with the help of the PDs, so why not green the Programme for Government? Small parties get the chance once in a generation to effect change, and we took that opportunity. We started to shift taxes away from labour to energy and resources, and make tax systems more sustainable and job-friendly. Meanwhile as we were beavering away at this, a tsunami came down the street in the form of the financial crisis and intervention by the IMF. No wonder we suffered. Despite trojan work from fantastic staff and supporters, the Green Party failed to win any Dail seats in Election 2011.
The election has delivered a clear result, but the issues that we campaigned on haven't gone away. As oil hits $115 a barrel, the issues of peak oil, energy security and climate change must remain in focus.
We brought in a transformative new planning act, but it requires vigilance to ensure that it fulfills its purpose. We published the Climate Change Response Bill, and we’ll be watching carefully to see that it proceeds. Other legislation such as the Noise Nuisance Bill and Dublin Bay Bill didn’t see the light of day, but deserve to do so.
Reform must be a theme for the Greens over the next five years. We need reform to make Government more transparent and open. We need reform to give Dublin a directly-elected mayor. We need reform to make local government more responsible to people's needs, and be more independent of central government. Perhaps we need to re-brand as the Green Reform Party to ensure that this message is clear.
I'll be watching to see how the new Government tackles some key issues. Metro North doesn't seem to get a mention in the Fine Gael / Labour Programme for Government. The new Children's Hospital seems to be in danger of being kicked to touch. Fine Gael voted against the 2010 Planning Act, and I'll be curious to see what Phil Hogan and Willie Penrose mean when they propose that "A democratically-decided Regional or City Plan will replace the present top-down Strategic Planning Guideline model." Climate Change gets just over two lines of a mention, so I'm not overly optimistic on that front either, even though we left a box-fresh Bill in the Senate that's ready to enact. The Dublin Mayor Bill doesn't even get a look-in, which is bad news for the capital, and there are no firm commitments to reduce the number of TDs. The Bill to ban Corporate Donations which contributed to the boom and bust economics of the Celtic Tiger years doesn't even get a mention.
Still, there are positives. Some of the local government reforms could be good, and I love the idea of providing an Irish version of www.FixMyStreet.com. Sure, if we could even come up with clear guidelines for local authorities to respond to email queries, we'd be well on our way to success in that area. I like the proposal to remove barriers to mobility across the public service, and feel that could transform government for the better. I was pleased to see Ruairi Quinn appointed to Education, and was glad to see that the year of free pre-school will be maintained. I wish him well in wrestling with the funding challenges of higher education.
The Green movement will remain as a force in Irish politics. Perhaps though we need to listen more, and lecture less. Perhaps we need to lead the way, but not instruct people that they have to follow us. We need to talk more about the good news that comes from implementing green policies, and less about the end being nigh.
I think I’ll enjoy the freedom of the weight of office being lifted, and in fact I’m already enjoying it. I’m not making too many plans for the moment, but I do know that I’ve been a campaigner for all of my adult life, and that will not go away.
The Welcome Inn on Parnell Street seemed like the right place to retire to after a discussion last night on Lisbon in the Institute for International and European Affairs up on North Great Georges Street.
Sean O'Laoire, the President of the Institute of Architects had organised a colloquium to discuss the Lisbon Treaty. Eoin O Cofaigh author of "A Green Vitruvius Sustainable Architectural Design" kicked things off by talking about his work within the Architects Council of Europe and the European Forum for Architectural Policies. After that Ruairi Quinn, Frank McDonald and myself spoke for a few minutes each, followed by contributions from the floor.
Eoin pointed out the Secretary General of the European Commission is an Irish women, Catherine Day, and that her predecessor was Irish as well. I thought that neatly tackled the concern that Ireland will find it hard to have influence in Brussels.
I talked about the economic benefits of Lisbon. The case for greater involvement in the European project has never been stronger: the internal market of 500 million Europeans will be where we’ll export the goods and services that will help our economic recovery and our membership of the euro has provided crucial assistance in our banking crisis.
As an environmentalist, I think we need to remain engaged with Europe because of the lead it has taken on issues such as climate change and energy security. Promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy is a new feature of the European Treaties, contained in Lisbon. There's a cheap shot doing the rounds at the moment that there's only five words ("and in particular combating climate change, At. 191.1) in the Treaty, but actually Lisbon goes much further than that. Article 3 specifies a "high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment", and Article 192 builds on Article 191 in specifying how the issues referred to in Art. 191 can be achieved. I like the references to town and country planning in that article; the management of water resources, and measures affecting land use. As John Gibbons points out the EU has been the only show in town on climate for practically the last eight years.
The Treaty also incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which sets out a range of civil, social and political rights and freedoms recognised by the European Convention on Human Rights and the constitutional traditions of Member States. I think the legally binding nature of it provisions, which will guarantee these rights, is a hugely positive aspect of the Treaty
I spoke about my concerns over Articles 42 and 43 that formalise the European Defence Agency, and particularly the obligation of Member States to offer "aid and assistance by all the means in their power" if an other "Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory." I am unhappy with these aspects of the Treaty, but ultimately I believe that the European Union has been the most successful political project on the Continent in the twentieth century. I remember going to France on a school exchange in the 1970s, and listening to children's parents talking about the horror of a war between French and German soldiers. Frank McDonald talked about how the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s had lasted longer than the siege of Leningrad, and about how ultimately it was the fighter jets from the United States rather than the European Union that stopped the violence.
Jim Roche of the Irish Anti War Movement spoke from the floor and echoed my concerns. He expressed concern at the presence of European troops in Afghanistan where recently a US CIA drone killed 147 civilians. He also asked why the Treaty didn't give the same emphasis to issues such as education. I pointed out that Article 165 and Art. 166 dealt in detail with education, and that the principle of subsidiarity (some things are better handled by the individual countries) limited the EU's scope in this area. Ruairi pointed out that the EU can't declare war, that a UN mandate is required, and he carefully differentiated the actions of individual member states from the actions of the EU.
The European Council also agreed on a Solemn Declaration on workers’ rights which confirms the high importance that the Union attaches to: social progress and the protection of workers' rights; public services; the responsibility of Member States for the delivery of education and health services; the essential role and wide discretion of national, regional and local authorities in providing, commissioning and organising services of general economic interest.
I spoke about the advances in equality that had come from Europe, and I think European action has ensured and will continue to lead advances for women; people with disabilities, gays and lesbians, and improvements in the environment. The European Commission and the European Courts have been to the fore in protecting the vulnerable.
Time was running out and I wasn't able to talk about the legal guarantees which clarify that nothing in the Lisbon Treaty makes any change of any kind, for any Member State, to the extent or operation of the Union’s competences in relation to taxation; the Lisbon Treaty does not affect or prejudice Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality – it confirms that there the Lisbon Treaty does not create a European army, nor does it provide for conscription; and nothing in the Lisbon Treaty or the Charter of Fundamental Rights affects in any way the scope and applicability of the provisions of the Irish Constitution relating to the protection of the right to life, family and education. |Some people have belittled these guarantees, but I feel if you're doing that you might as well make light of the Good Friday Agreement! I also think the guarantees the Government sought and got on abortion, taxation and neutrality will help clarify the decision in people’s minds. These are all matters for the Irish people to decide, not the EU. If we vote Yes, we’ll keep our Commissioner which will give the Government a direct line to the top table in Brussels.
After the debate we walked down the road to the Welcome Inn, a pub that hasn't changed since it was rebuilt after the Dublin Bombings in 1974. Being the day that was in it we continued the discussion over several pints of Arthur's finest, to celebrate Guinness's 250th anniversary
I believe the presence of the European Union has allowed us to get over the historical challenge of getting on with one neighbouring country with which we've had an uneasy relationship for 800 years. I'm amused that it took a referendum to get Sinn Féin to put a Union Jack on their posters, to illustrate their concerns about a loss of voting strength in Europe. To be honest, I'm happy about Ireland's voting strength in Europe post Lisbon. I believe that an elegant formula has been found to ensure that smaller nations are well represented, and I believe we're well capable of punching way above our weight. As we downed pints of a local brew that has become a global brand I felt proud to a Dubliner, proud to be Irish and proud to be part of a European Union that continues to change, adapt and progress to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
I'm voting yes on Friday October 2nd. I believe the people of Ireland should ratify the Lisbon Treaty.
Ouch, that hurt.
