GREEN YOUTH QUAKE
After long weeks of tortuous negotiation, the party is split over whether to compromise in order to enter government
A ‘YOUTHQUAKE’ across all three parties involved in coalition negotiations has rocked chances of forming a government.
The youth wings of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party are all pushing for the deal to be rejected.
The environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion also urged Green Party members to vote against the deal.
Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan, who spent six weeks helping to negotiate the deal, sent shockwaves throughout her party when she abstained from a parliamentary vote on the Programme for Government.
Two other TDs abstained from the vote – Dublin South Central TD Patrick Costello and Dublin South West TD Francis Noel Duffy. Mr Duffy is the husband of the party’s deputy leader and lead negotiator, Catherine Martin.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail last night, Deputy Hourigan said she had raised concerns about the economic plan, housing and homelessness.
‘I raised concerns throughout the process. I was honest with TDs and I abstained so that the members could make up their own mind.’
Deputy Hourigan has pointed to a ‘problematic’ economic programme and a failure to address issues of deprivation, housing, homelessness and social justice as reasons why she could not back the deal. The Green Party’s membership will have a seven-hour virtual convention today to debate the Programme for Government. The party requires a two-thirds majority in order to approve the deal and allow them to enter government.
All eyes will be on Ms Martin at the convention to see whether she battles to get the deal approved.
A Green Party source said: ‘I think the majority of Green Party members want to go into government. It’s unclear whether two thirds do just yet, but from a leadership perspective it would be a mistake for Catherine [Martin] not to back the deal.’
The source said that Ms Martin and her husband, Mr Duffy, would usually vote along the same tracks and it was ‘strange’ that they didn’t on this occasion.
Sources within the party have said Deputy Hourigan did not give any indication she wasn’t going to back the deal before Monday’s vote.
A Green Party source said: ‘There’s widespread disappointment, it’s hard to understand. Neasa didn’t want to go into talks initially, but once they began she worked hard to get this deal. There was no indication she wasn’t going to back it,’ they said.
The chairman of the Young Greens, Gavin Nugent, believes that there ‘is a significant chance that it [the deal] won’t be passed.
The youth wing commands a significant section of the parties’ electorate with around 600 members eligible to vote, accounting for roughly 23% of the Green Party’s total membership.
Many of the Young Greens canvassed for the party to get Fine
Gael out of office and feel aggrieved that the party is now proposing to put them back in.
‘There is a lack of costings, a lack of timelines and a lack of progress in other areas outside of the environment and transport, which is the counterbalance to going in.
‘The lack of costings, timeframes and the backloading of the carbon reduction is the worry for a lot of younger members.’
Mr Nugent said he has yet to decide how he will vote personally but he believes it will be rejected by the youth wing.
‘Obviously, we recognise that there is good stuff in it but does the cost and the bad stuff outweigh the good stuff?
‘I suspect the younger members will lean heavily against it. There will be some who will vote for it, though,’ added Mr Nugent.
Green TD Ossian Smyth, a member of the negotiating team, is advocating for members to accept the deal. He said that politics is about ‘compromise’ and that nothing will happen unless we bring ‘others with us’.
When asked if he thought the deal would be passed by the membership, Mr Smyth said: ‘I am not taking it for granted at all. I should actually get back to campaigning.’
Deputy Smyth said another ‘intense election campaign’ had begun to get approval for the deal. ‘It is a matter of all of us ringing around our members. It is an intense election campaign again. It never ends. We have to get people on board and… we have to bring people with us. ‘We can’t make them take this deal. Just because I am keen on it doesn’t mean that they are. They have really good reasons to be worried. Half of politics is talking and the other half is listening. You can’t just be preaching.
‘The Greens have lots of ideas but we also have to listen to people,’ he said.
Mr Smyth said that he did not think the public would thank the party if they rejected the deal.
‘You have to consider the alternative. We are doing this deal, and
‘No indication she wouldn’t back it’ ‘We can’t make them take this deal’
if we don’t get it, what is going to happen?
‘I don’t think that is a pretty prospect at all and I don’t think the public would be happy. There is a lot of uncertainty.’
Green MEP Grace O’Sullivan made an appeal to the membership of the Greens to ‘get behind’ this deal as it has ‘green fingerprints’ on every page.
‘We have a Programme for Government on the table that was hard negotiated, and led by Catherine Martin. I’m asking you to go and support that Programme for Government.
‘I’ll tell you why, because you know it’s not perfect but there’s a lot in there. Every page there is some element of hope and every page has a green fingerprint on it.’
The National Executive of Young Fine Gael voted unanimously yesterday to instruct their three representatives on the Fine Gael Executive Council to vote against the deal.
The party has an electoral college system, meaning votes are weighted in a hierarchical system.
In a statement they said that they believed Fine Gael’s ‘distinct identity will be irreparably jeopardised by entering into a Government with Fianna Fáil and the Green Party’.
The youth wing of Fianna Fáil – Ógra Fianna Fáil – voted on Monday to reject the deal but have now said they will respect a members’ vote. In a statement they said: ‘We cannot reconcile the neglect the country has endured under Fine Gael in government. ‘We fought and campaigned hard to remove them from office in this year’s general election.’
craig.hughes@dailymail.ie