The dunderhead Greens will always leave you unfulfilled
Well, at least now we know one thing for certain after Eamon Ryan’s jolly green giant performance in the Dáil. These radical environmentalist types can no longer be dismissed as just a bunch of insufferable, virtue-signalling, boring, middle-class vegans. They also, clearly, have the most extraordinary sense of humour – including taking the mick out of themselves.
If I were Oliver Callan I’d have a good think about things like delivery, timing and subject matter and I’d pore over Ryan’s Dáil skit for inspiration.
Deliberate self-parody is borne of confidence – and, if that’s true, then Eamon Ryan is bursting with it. (Although, goodness knows why.)
‘We’ll have our salads ready to go,’ he told deputies in a depleted, physically-distanced Dáil Chamber as he encouraged us to head off down to the hardware shop and get whatever is necessary to paint the back of the house and then plant our south-facing window boxes with seeds – presumably lettuce and the like.
Butterhead lettuce mixed with dunderhead Greens and a few little gems, garnished with a blank refusal to enter talks with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on the formation of a goverment.
All this in the teeth of a health catastrophe that threatens thousands of lives in Ireland and an unknown number around the globe, accompanied by an off-the-cliff economic disaster, mass unemployment and social upheaval – overlaid with stress and worry that is off the Richter scale.
Between them Fianna Fáil (37 seats, taking the Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl into account) and Fine Gael (35 seats) are eight short of the magic 80 seats for a waferthin, overall majority. To give themselves any chance of lasting for about four years as a stable and strong government they need to attract at least 12 more votes.
That’s why Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael simply need to have their Greens – a reality that places the Greens in an extremely strong negotiating position.
However, rather than press home their advantage the Greens are acting like a bunch of amateurs paralysed by the daunting prospect of finally returning to senior hurling.
This week Neasa Hourigan, the Greens’ finance spokeswoman, insisted they would only entertain talks with other parties if the intention was to form a national government, in order to combat the existential threat posed by the coronavirus.
The Greens are now selfisolating in a manner that is both witless and staggeringly insulting to those who voted for them and others who rely on them to step up at a time of national crisis. Outside the make-believe world inhabited by the Greens, there is an ever-increasing urgency to form a government, not least to vindicate the requirements for democratic legitimacy.
After this week the Oireachtas will no longer be able to pass legislation because of an intricate catch22 arising from strict constitutional requirements. This is because the new Seanad cannot be fully formed until a new Taoiseach discharges his entitlement to appoint 11 senators. And we can’t have a new Taoiseach until there’s agreement on the formation of the next government.
The Greens’ self-maiming, harikari-style politics right now means that Independent TDs such as the Healy-Raes (Michael in particular), Michael Lowry, Denis Naughten, Peter Fizpatrick and even Verona Murphy assume a huge significance.
There’s also Seán Canney who is caretaker Junior Minister for Natural Resources and Community Affairs – and we all know how determined he has been to be included in the second tier of government. Add in former Labour man, Michael McNamara from Clare – who as a barrister would likely to fancy a role in Justice – and you tip the scales with 80 Deputies. That, however, looks like a lot of hard work.
So, if the Greens continue to selfexclude, the six battered and bruised Labour survivors will also come more and more into play. Both Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar may well be pushing an open door, however, if Alan Kelly ends up as Labour leader, considering his stated position in 2016 that power is a drug.
He said: ‘Anybody who says that power isn’t attractive is telling you a lie. Of course it is. It’s obviously a drug. It’s attractive. It’s something you thrive on. It suits some people. It doesn’t suit others. I think it suits me.’ Worryingly, somebody who talks like that should be kept well away from power – but because of Dáil mathematics, needs must.
The Greens are doing their best to make themselves look ridiculous and irrelevant – and just at a time when their arguments on climate change and biodiversity have been largely accepted.
That’s the trouble with greens – you try to like them but they lack ballast and you never feel full afterwards.