GREENS ‘JOBS FOR THE BOYS’

Fighting for his leadership, Ryan points to victory spoils for party

GREEN leader Eamon Ryan told a private debate on the party’s leadership contest that, as a party of Government, the Greens will secure dozens of new staff positions for supporters.

Mr Ryan told the party gathering: ‘We will have an extra 40 to 50 staff at the end of this process.’

Sources have told the Irish Mail on Sunday that a larger than normal group of advisers is being recruited for the Greens in an attempt by the party to build up a network of spin-doctors similar to that of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Separately, the party leadership challenger Catherine Martin pledged to delegates at a private Green Party debate that, under her leadership, any government will ‘go the Green way or the highway’.

Ms Martin, who went out of her way to praise the role of party colleague and Coalition opponent Neasa Hourigan in the Programme for Government negotiations, said that she wanted to ‘lead a Green party that captures

hearts’. She said the threat of walking away from Government in the event of Green policies not being delivered must be credible.

Ms Martin expressed the ambition that the Greens, who returned 12 TDs in the election, should not ‘settle for being the fourth largest party. We need to go big or go home. I would like to negotiate the next programme for government with 40 Green TDs. She also warned her Coalition partners that if the Green agenda is not implemented, ‘they will hear us loud and clear’.

Mr Ryan focused on infrastructural issues such as the need for the party to secure a raft of new appointments.

The party needs, he said, ‘to appoint a team that reflects the scale and role of the party. We need teams of advisers’.

The current leader assured delegates that he was not planning to ‘be a leader for life – there will be bunting outside the Ryan house when I go, and it will not be that far away.’

The Green leadership race is tipped to go to the wire, with a critical middleground of party members still undecided on the respective merits of the two candidates.

Initial surveys indicate Mr Ryan holds a significant lead among the party’s TDs and senators, with those senators nominated by Mr Ryan being especially supportive.

However, in a more accurate reflection of the grassroots mood, the party’s 49 city and county councillors are equally split.

Ms Martin’s supporters believe that her more equivocal position on the Programme for Government means that she has secured the support of a critical 25% of the party that voted ‘no’.

However, Mr Ryan is also believed to have the support of that quarter of the party that constitutes the old guard. It is, one source observed, ‘a battle of the centre-ground.’

Despite claims that the two contenders

‘FF and FG don’t have the measure of Catherine’

are the best of ‘frenemies’, the Ryan camp has taken a noticeably more aggressive approach to campaigning.

Ms Martin has been sharply criticised for declaring she wanted to oust Mr Ryan as leader, even as the party was in the middle of talks to form a government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. This included interventions from both parties, criticising her for destabilising the negotiations.

One source said: ‘Eamon has been busy cultivating myths among his media friends about how he was the man who rescued the deal.’

Another said: ‘There has been a lot of spin about how Eamon singlehandedly rebuilt the party and how he singlehandedly secured a Yes vote.

‘Our candidates are dealing with a knowledgeable audience. They know the contribution on the frontline made by Catherine in building the party.

‘They are also very aware that it was Catherine’s support that swung the Programme for Government through.

‘History is being reinvented here by Eamon’s media allies.’

Unease is also growing with the positioning and attitude being taken by Mr Ryan on key personnel issues in the wake of Government formation.

One senior party figure said: ‘All of our concerns are coming to the fore. The failure to appoint Neasa has gone down very badly in terms of lost opportunities on gender and uniting the party.’

They added: ‘There are reasons why the party wants a contest. There are real concerns already about Eamon’s capacity to stand up to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

‘There is a bit of the surrendered wife about him when he is with the FF and the FG lads.’

It is, another source said, ‘a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. He looks like the Beta male of the trio’.

‘Catherine,’ they added, ‘will not be having red-line issues every week but she was definitely the bad cop in this duo for the negotiations.

‘She’s the one who makes FF and FG uneasy. They don’t have the measure of her. She secured the Greenest deal in Europe.’

Another source said: ‘There was a certain degree of sexism surrounding the opposition to Catherine: How dare this woman challenge the establishment!’

One would think, they added, that, ‘the Greens were the only party in the world that engaged in a postelection leaders contest.’

Around 2,700 Green Party members are eligible to vote and the result is expected on July 23.

Meanwhile, a slew of new Green advisers is expected to be resourced by the Department of the Taoiseach with Green sources saying they would ‘shadow’ the retinues of their Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael allies.

The resources are being sought against a backdrop where one of the consequences of the new grand alliance between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has been a significant increase in the resources and status allocated to the office of the Tánaiste.

Previously, this essentially was an honorific title with a salary bonus and a Garda driver. However, as part of a balancing act with FF under the new coalition agreement, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar will retain his current taoiseach’s retinue of eight key advisers.

The previous administration, which secured an unenviable reputation for being highly gaffe- prone, employed 60 ‘so-called’ special advisers at a cost of €5,146,100.

The signs, however, are that this will be surpassed by the political exigencies of the new grand alliance of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.

By far the biggest spender on advice in the last administration was the then taoiseach, Mr Varadkar, who spent approximately €1.1m a year on special advisers

This figure covered 14 staff members and included three advisers for the Independent Alliance and two advisers for the Chief Whip’s office.