Wexford Greens playing a part in government formation dialogue
FOUR MONTHS on from running in the general election for the Green Party, Gorey’s Paula Roseingrave is hopeful that the grassroots branch of the party can be successful in forming a new dialogue with elected politicians on green policy in Co Wexford.
Ms Roseingrave, who received over 2,000 votes, said that she didn’t realistically see herself becoming a TD, but that her election bid was all about sparking an interest and getting more people involved in the Green party in this county.
‘We’ve been busy as bees since the general election and getting more people involved in the Green Party is exactly what we’ve done. Things are now reactivated and we have a very formidable group of people with a number of skills and great backgrounds in business, engineering and economics. This broad range of very experienced people are able to engage in all the areas of green policy,’ she said.
The party being involved in government formation talks is something that surprised Ms Roseingrave and the Wexford Greens, but it is something that local members support, despite not being politically represented by any councillors or senators.
‘I don’t think anybody envisaged during the general election that it would be a Fianna Fail/Fine Gael coalition but, for us, it’s like everything, you’ve got to take things as far as you can go with them to explore the areas of agreement. We really do believe that we are running short on time when it comes to climate break down, so that means that you can’t walk away from situations where you can have some impact and I think that’s our particular perspective.
‘Everything that has come up, together we examine them and go through them in our meetings. The most important thing about government formation is going to be trust. That will be the maker or breaker, how many people trust these two big parties to stick to any agreements we have.
‘We’re very conscious that we want time-limited action, insofar as we want to make sure that if they say they’re going to do something, they’re given a certain amount of time and that’s going to build trust. With climate action, you can’t kick things into the long grass and that is going to be important to be maintained right from the get go,’ she said.
The Wexford Greens plan to use their multi-discipline experience to analyse and examine any draft negotiation document. Ms Roseingrave said that the team will critique it in an expert manner so that they can make their own judgement and voice their views.
‘The seven per cent is very important in terms of greenhouse gas reduction. Without that, we’re not going to be able to make much progress not just in the global environment but in our environment here and the damage it’s going to do. Nothing else is going to be effective without that and it’s what we’re already signed up to in the Paris Agreement. We are all in agreement on that so it’s what we’ll be holding firm on.
‘We want communities taking control over their energy production and we’re very well placed here in Wexford in that we can trap solar power here and we have wind energy. We want to try and keep energy in our homes and not have it escape and, beyond that, we want to look at having a sustainable energy that is not going to pollute the planet’.
She explained that other policy areas key to Wexford include farming and reduced-carbon transport.
‘We are putting in our first motion at the next meeting this month and it’s getting a reduced carbon rail system running all the way down to the south east to link the towns right up to Dublin. We need to look at taking cars off the road for those who travel up and down every day and provide a well resourced transport system that is affordable and accessible.
‘Another issue is that we want to ensure a universal basic income, particularly for farmers. We are hoping that anybody over the age of 18 in a farming household will benefit and this will tackle some of the enormous financial difficulties farmers are facing at the moment. Personally, I want to diminish the idea that Greens are anti-farming because we are actively engaged with farming communities’.
The Wexford Greens believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is a game-changing moment in creating a more environmentally-friendly society.
‘I hope that this pandemic has woken people up,’ said Ms Roseingrave. She believes the pandemic has also forced people to realise the importance of thinking ahead to ‘oncoming deadly tragedies’.
‘If you do not prepare for them, they overtake you. Right now, every party in the political system has to be a green party, to survive and to keep this planet alive for the species to stay on this planet. My hope is that the TDs of whatever variety here in Wexford and beyond are thinking that way now.
‘When I was running in the election, what I campaigned on was that what was ahead of us in terms of tackling climate breakdown was going to have to take an enormous change in mass behaviour, that’s how I saw it and I wondered how that was ever going to happen. Hey presto! A terrible tragic event happened globally that stopped us in our tracks.
‘A lot of people died and overnight, literally, we have become a low carbon, environmentally focused society living the good life. What we’re trying to say now is that these changes will bring much better family circumstances, work circumstances, and environmental in terms of us breathing fresh air, that we have the kind of commutes that are shorter and publicly served. It’s an amazing thing that has happened even though it has been brought about by challenging circumstances but we’re living a life that is very in tune in the environment.
‘The roots of this pandemic are the same issues that we’ve been trying to speak about for a long time. For example, thinking back to how this started in Wuhan; you mess with the ecological basis of our lives, such as wildlife and bacteria in close proximity to humans, you mess with things in nature that you can never afford to mess with. What we’re trying to do in green policy is having us live a life that is not just in harmony with nature, but with families and better work environments.
‘Eamon Ryan is not the only one who thinks we’re experiencing a different kind of life – there is a whole new community spirit out there now, and a lot of us are thinking it’s a better kind of life’.
Ms Roseingrave said that going back to the ‘old normal’ could be a mistake.
‘We have opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint and mother nature is teaching us a very important lesson here. The pandemic has shown us that we do not have to get into planes or on roads to do meetings as we can happily do it on Zoom now. It could be the most important juncture to stem climate change, because we’re already half way there at a behavioural level and people have appreciated just what a great world there is out there and want to protect it more,’ she said.
Looking to the future of the party locally, Ms Roseingrave said that she is unsure whether she’d run as a candidate again if a second election was called.
‘We are very limited with what we can physically do over the summer but we will start engaging with our TDs as we see ourselves very much as supportive of what the Green Party is doing in negotiations. We are looking at the financial side of a green and a just transition, and the members are very keen to give an account of how we can financially bring that into being.
‘From my own perspective, I’m hoping to do what I can as a psychologist, as well as a member of the Green Party, because post-Covid, mental health problems are going to be enormous and I believe that is another crisis awaiting us because a lot of peoples’ lives have changed because of this.
‘We hope that the economics of the future will be very different from the economics of the past but we will have to see now what TDs will take on that message but that’s my hope for what will come out of this’.
The Wexford Greens are very supportive of the current leadership, but will be revisiting the topic during a general meeting in the coming weeks.