George, Deirdre, Willie and Trevor

What a fortnight! 


There's been quite a few losers in all of this and some winners as well. Dan had a good week last week, as did Vincent P Martin and Gary Fitzgerald. The rest of us? No, we didn't cover ourselves in glory, but that's the benefit of hindsight.


George Lee's departure from politics a fortnight ago took most of us by suprise. He strikes me as decent guy who found life in Leinster House a lot more difficult than it appears from afar. Change can takes a long time to happen, and involves compromise and lenghty discussions. I got some flack over describing a meeting of the sub-Committee on Dáil Reform of the Committee on Procedures and Privileges as being similar to watching paint dry, but change happens slowly when all sides seek consensus on an issue. The end result of that particular process will probably result in a legislature that sits longer and spends more time both legislating and dealing with topical issues, but the road to that destination is long and winding.


George wanted to move quickly, and in the media results have to happen for a 6 or a 9 o'clock deadline, and I'm sure he found that frustrating. You've also got to have a good working relationship with your colleagues, and that's always a challenge. There's a mad mix of ego and idealism in politics, and collegiality is often crucial in getting the right result. I had a few brief chats with George over the last few months. We discussed kids and the challenge of a work-life balance, and he struck me as a decent individual. I can only imagine that it was difficulty to come into a party where most members of the front bench have three or four Dáil terms behind them, and where the existing TDs already have clearly delineated roles.


Deirdre de Burca's departure has been a real loss. She's been a great campaigner for the Green Party and did great work in exposing planning and waste management peculiarities in County Wicklow. She grew up just down the road from me in Cabinteely, and I suspect that the campaigns against the rezoning of Cherrywood led by her neighbour Michael Smith in the early 1990's informed her own politicisation. Michael has gone on to edit the Village Magazine, and is providing a lively and informed commentary on contemporary Ireland. She attended some of the World Social Forums and was enthused by the discussion of alternative economic systems. I feel that she found Government challenging, and particularly the tough decisions over the bank guarantees and the setting up of the National Assets Management Agency. She loves the stimulation of European policy and decision-making and gave much of her time to the Forum on Europe, campaigning for a yes vote in the Lisbon Referenda, and catching up with the latest developments in Brussels. As a result of this she wasn't the most frequent attendee at our weekly parliamentary party meetings, and she missed out on a lot of the discussions last autumn around the renegotiation of the Programme for Government. I was surprised that she lobbied for a position in Brussels, but that's water under the bridge now. 


I'm also taken aback by the thrust of her most recent email regarding the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA). We all receive tens of thousands of emails every year, and in my experience I would either raise an issue of concern at our weekly parliamentary party meetings, or by writing directly to John or his senior staff. I tend not to cc John in emails that I've sent to someone else as he's even more swamped with information than the rest of us. In any case by the time that she wrote to him last August the concerns about the Docklands had already been well aired by Kathleen Barrington in the Sunday Business Post. I suspect that the DDDA won't come out of all of this as a paragon of corporate governance, but I am reassured that John Gormley has appointed Niamh Brennan as chair of the Authority.


 The irony in all of this is that the green critique of the Celtic Tiger years has been well and truly vindicated at this stage. We were critical of decisions made by previous governments, and the over-reliance on tax incentives, especially in the area of property development. That's why I'm heartened that Brian Cowen has Peter Clinch as his economic advisor. Peter co-authored 'After the Celtic Tiger' along with Frank Convery and Brendan Walsh, and it is heartening that he has the ear of our Taoiseach during these tough times. I suspect that there's not too many unexploded bombs in the DDDA, but if there is, I'm sure that John Gormley will take the right course of action. 


The Willy O'Dea resignation was messy. The Greens; Fianna Fáil; Willy O'Dea himself, no-one in government comes out of this well. Given that Pat Carey seems to have made the decision to run with the Motion of Confidence in the shower on Wednesday morning, we need to have much clearer lines of communication, and decision-making, and I'm glad to say that he's agreed to that. You might think that in a small Party we'd be in close contact with each other all the time, but the reality is that we're all stretched, trying to cover several portfolios at the same time. Sitting days are often a blur with opportunities to catch up with colleagues being limited to chance meetings in the corridors, text messages, or a hurried lunch in the Dáil canteen. One of the difficulties was that the text from Pat Carey's office regarding the Motion of Confidence only went to Dáil deputies and did not go to Senators, so Dan didn't realise that realise that matters would move as quickly as they did. It may come across as nit-picking, but voting against a Motion of No Confidence a week later would have been quite different from voting for a motion of Confidence on the day. Vincent P Martin's article on the Wednesday was excellent, but the Limerick Leader failed to exonerate Willy O'Dea, and both the tape, his interview and the Dáil debate failed to do the Minister any favours.

Meanwhile life goes on in Leinster House. I'm meeting some rail freight users at 11, a trip out to see Eirgrid's control room at 12, and the Dáil week kicks off at 2.30. 

The pic? That's the unfinished Anglo-Irish Bank headquarters in Dublin Docklands, and someone fishing in the foreground. Maybe we should keep it just the way it is, as a monument to the excesses of the Tiger years.

UPDATE 8.45pm
Turned out not to be a normal day after all. I'm still in shock at the news of Trevor's resignation as a Junior Minister. He is one of the most selfless decent people that I have met in public life. It seemed like half of Leinster House where saying to themselves "there but for the grace of God go I" when they heard the news.


As John Gormley noted earlier this evening Trevor "acted promptly and without any self interest. That is totally in keeping with his approach to politics and the contribution he has made across the past four decades."

I couldn't agree more.

Deireadh seachtaine maith

"Deireadh seachtaine maith?" asked the teacher as I dropped the kids into school this morning. "Go h-an mhaith!" I replied.

Looking back, there were five intense challenges over the last ten days, and we got through them all. The Lisbon vote was followed by the hiatus over the Ceann Comhairle, then came the final hours of the Programme for Government negotiation on Thursday evening and approval from the Reference Group, followed by the two crucial votes of Green Party members on Saturday - one on the Programme itself, and then one on NAMA. We got through them all.

I took this pic just after 8.30pm on Friday evening. At that stage the Green Party Reference Group and our negotiators were holed up on the third floor of Agriculture House. Mary White is in the foreground and to her left are John Gormley, Colm O Caomhanaigh, Cllr. Mark Deary, Paul Gogarty, Elizabeth Davidson, Cllr. Vincent P Martin, Roderick O'Gorman, Dan Boyle, Trevor Sargent, Andrew Murphy, Trish Forde-Brennan, Stiofain Nutty and Damian Connon. John Downing's reflection is in the window and Eamon Ryan is just out of shot. It was a crucial moment, did we have a deal or not? John Downing was counting down the minutes to the news, yet we knew that crucial parts of the small print had not been signed off on. Like any agreement there has to be trust, and we went with the line that the deal was done in time for the 9 o'clock news.

The line by line work went on until ten. At that stage the Oireachtas staff were locking us out of the third floor and we had to go up to the fifth floor to continue till near midnight in a Department of Agriculture Conference Room that Trevor allowed us to use. Stiofain then took our edits back to Government Buildings where Noel Dempsey and Eamon Ryan worked with their teams till after 7.30 am. By the end of the night Fianna Fáil and the Green Party were eventually working off a single PC on the master copy. That was followed by a logistical nightmare of trying to print 20,000 pages by 10am. Copiers in Government Buildings and Leinster House were cranked up, and someone from John Gormley's office headed down to Reads and took over four copiers. There was even someone sent out to Stillorgan to a copy shop. That's why the documentation was delayed in getting to the Convention in the RDS until after 11am. Never again! The Programme was given first directly to the members so that they could see it first-hand, rather than through the media lens. The Sunday Tribune carried criticism from eco-socialists saying we had sold out, while the Irish edition of the Sunday Times led with the line that new taxes were on the way. I guess if you're getting equal and opposite criticism when you're in Government you're probably doing OK.

Look, let's have no illusions about it all. There is an avalanche coming down the hill in the December Budget. We have committed to cut €4 billion off current spending next year, the year after and the year after that. The next few years will be tough, and as the man with the green mohawk put it: "I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

Interesting to think that facing across the table from each other at the negotiations were a business women, a former businessman and former Community Youth Worker from the Greens; and two former teachers and a lawyer from Fianna Fáil. They were well matched.

The Programme is transformational and here's a few highlights:

-we're establishing a €100m Enterprise Stabilization Fund and €200m Green Fund in AIB and BOI as well as a deposit account that will be ring-fenced for lending to Green projects. Recommendations from the Farmleigh Global Irish Forum will be implemented, as well as continuing the work laid out in the 'Building Ireland's Smart Economy' Framework;

-promotions within the Public Service will be on the basis of merit, eliminating seniority as a determining factor in public appointments. Senior appointments from Principal Officer upwards will be open to applicants from the the private and other sectors, and someone from outside the Civil Service will chair the Top Level Appointments Committee;

-limiting restrict direct political donations to political parties or candidates to individual Irish citizens and residents only and facilitate a system where donations from private bodies, including businesses and corporations, can be made to a political fund which will be distributed to political parties in accordance with their electoral performance in the previous Dáil election;

-reforming the system of expenses for members of the Oireachtas to ensure the system is transparent, vouched and open to scrutiny, including the regular publication of such expenses. This system will be verified and verifiable;

-reforming local government in Ireland to strengthen the strategic role and function of regional authorities in planning, transport, water and waste management;

-moving from taxes on labour to taxes on resources. That will include site value taxation, a carbon levy and charging for treated water, with a free basic allowance;

-spending twice as much in future on public transport projects as on roads;

-an end to stag hunting and fur farming, and the adoption of the principles and 5 freedoms set out in the Scottish Animal Health and Welfare Act;

-a Climate Change bill that will give a statutory basis to the annual carbon budget to reduce emissions by 3%;

-honouring the commitments to our children given in our 2007 Manifesto with good news on class sizes; Capitation Grants, no third level fees and a referendum on children's rights.

Sure, I'd like to see firmer time-lines and detailed costings, but often political documents are more poetry than prose. The budget will make the costings clearer. Changes in demarcation and work practices can save billions. I think it is a decent Programme, and given that we've implemented half of the original Programme for Government from when the Government was formed over two years ago, I think we should do fine.

October's been a pretty crazy month so far. Let's see how things fare between now and Christmas. As the introduction to the new Programme states:
"Teastaíonn spiorad an Mheitheal anois níos mó ná riamh. Spiorad an chomharsanacht, spiorad an chomhoibriú."

Eleventh Hour

It's late, and I'm tired.

It's been a tough year for the Country, for the Government and for the Green Party.

This week has been one of the most difficult I've faced in my 27 years in the Party. If we don't conclude talks tomorrow morning with Fianna Fáil on transforming the Programme for Government we walk.

I was on Late Date on RTE Radio One earlier this evening saying all of this. It was curiously cathartic to talk about how I felt and outline where things are at. Our team -Mary White TD, Minister Eamon Ryan and Senator Dan Boyle, have had over forty hours of talks over the last eight days with Ministers Dermot Ahern, Mary Hanafin and Noel Dempsey. I don't know if we can reach agreement. From the start we've been emphasising jobs, political reform and eduction as being key areas where we need to transform this government. There's been progress, but the clock is ticking.

Our membership have called a special convention this Saturday in the RDS in Dublin to decide whether or not we stay in government, and whether or not to support the NAMA legislation. We require a two-thirds majority to stay in government. A motion to vote down NAMA and end our participation in government would also require a two thirds vote. The bar is set high to stay. This will be the fifth time this year that members have met to discuss crucial issues for the Party.

The strains and stress take their toll. At a personal level its becoming increasingly difficult to manage the huge demands that are being made on all of us. There's a balance that has to be struck between family life, responsibilities to the constituency, to the Green Party, and to Government. You can never get it all right, but between the normal demands of a Dáil constituency, the responsibilities to attendance and participation in Dáil committees and votes, and the concerns of the Party it can be a mountain to climb. Oh, and I left out the work life-balance part.

I'm trying to be fairly philosophical about it all, but it's not easy. I really believe that green ideas are crucial to getting us through the current economic and environmental challenges. We've got to move Ireland from the boom-bust buildings and big cars fixation into an Ireland that's better planned with a more diversified economy. It'll involve green jobs - in the digital economy, agriculture, renewable energy, sustainable construction and smarter travel. It will be based on confidence in the political system, investment in education and proper planning. There has to be a move to resource taxes, and away from taxes on labour. I believe the Green Party is best placed to help guide, lead and transform politics through the tough decisions that lie ahead for several years to come.

I met someone from the Labour Party today. She talked about how necessary it is to have Green Party as a force in Irish politics, to tackle energy and climate change issues. I also bumped into a Fianna Fáil back-bencher who spoke in desperation about the need to be relieved from the necessity of almost daily funeral attendances of constituents to allow him to concentrate on policy and legislation. The political system requires systemic reforms.

There's a yearning for so many of the ideas that the Green Party brings to the table, whether it be on environment challenges, local government reform, or matters as simple as Safe Routes to School. Its a tough, tough time to be in Government. The John O'Donoghue issue was the straw that almost broke the camel's back for the Greens. I'm hoping that it will act as a catalyst for all of us to reform, and transform the politics of business as usual.

Politics is never easy. I remember having intense debates and rows twenty-five years ago about whether the Greens should be a campaigning NGO or actually contest elections. We chose the latter, and entered a world that is rarely black or white, and that has many shades of grey. Looking back, I think that was the right choice.

I've been on the phone a lot in the past few days talking with Party members. I'm telling them that if we do get a deal that transforms the Programme for Government, then we'll put it to our members on Saturday and ask them for supoport. I'm saying that the NAMA vote is a tough one, but that we have got changes in the Bill, and there are more to come, and that on balance I believe it is the best option to deal with a banking crisis that was not of our making.

A lot depends on what happens over the next 12, and perhaps 48 hours. I'll try and keep you posted.

Masterminds at Anglo Irish bank

I must have missed it by minutes.

I had dropped the kids to school and peddled up to Stephen's Green to take a couple of picture of the front of Anglo Irish. Little did I know that the Guards were inside investigating suspected breaches of company law.

I guess you could describe it as some sort of reverse take-over when the the Guards rather than the robbers raid the bank.

The advertising in the window shows a Mastermind chair with the headline "Our chosen subject is savings". Given that the TV Quiz show's most well-known presenter was Iceland's own Magnús Magnússon I'm sure that there are some embarrassed faces in an ad agency somewhere. The small print on the Corporate logo reads "There is a difference." Damn right there is.

There's quite a few nuggets of information on Anglo's website including a Q and A on the Nationalisation process. Under the 'What triggered the nationalisation?" section (otherwise known as 'where did it all go wrong?') it states:

The funding position of Anglo ... progressively weakened over the past few weeks, and the ... unacceptable corporate governance practices that took place within Anglo ...caused serious reputational damage to the bank at a time when overall market sentiment towards it has been negative. The Government confirmed that the planned recapitalisation of Anglo announced on 21 December 2008 is not now the most appropriate and effective means to secure the bank's continued viability. Therefore, the Government decided to move to the final and decisive step of taking Anglo into public ownership.

Our Senator Dan Boyle was pretty outspoken in the Senate this afternoon. He feels that Fitzpatrick, Drumm and Bradshaw should be suspended until the investigations by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Financial Regulator have come to conclusion.

I had gone up to take a pic of Anglo to illustrate one of the few silver linings that might present itself to the side of the current dark cloud: Presumably much of Anglo's debt is tied to defaulting developers who have over-stretched themselves on land acquisition. If this is carefully handled it could allow the state to acquire significant land holdings that could be used to meet social housing and affordable housing demand for years to come.

Meanwhile, the lobbyists prowl the corridors of Leinster House. Tom Cullen from the SIMI seems to have spent the last two weeks drinking coffee with Fianna Fail back-benchers. He even claims that the Department of Finance now believe that a car scrappage scheme stacks up to create jobs. I'm not convinced. Our car fleet is young compared to the rest of Europe, and around half the carbon cost of a car is in its manufacture. I'm waiting for Tom to give me the figures.

The new president of the Construction Industry Federation Andy O'Gorman graces the cover of their official magazine of the Construction Industry Federation. He is straight up about his message: "We need effective lobbying to secure a commitment to continue the roads programme" he states. But what about the Metro, Andy? That could create 4,000 construction jobs.

My rant of the day is reserved for David Baddeley from Volvo Ireland. In his article in the Irish Times Motors supplement he believes that "Buying a car might actually put some people in a better financial position". This follows on from a paragraph where he states that buying payment protection insurance can address any concerns about possible redundancy. Have we learnt nothing from the boom? These type of advertorials in the motoring supplements mirror the excesses of the property supplements from the boom years that included ads for housing in Gorey Co. Wexford describing their developments as being within easy rail commuting distance of Dublin even when the first train didn't arrive in to Dublin till half ten.

My advice? Spend your money wisely. I'm banking on insulation. With the new grants coming on stream you can have a warmer home and reduce your fuel bills. There's also thousands of jobs, and a lot less carbon as the scheme is rolled out. My overview of the grants scheme is here.

Good luck with your spending!