Ryan won’t rap Chu for Green campaign gig
Political event at city park adds to party’s woes
GREEN leader Eamon Ryan has snubbed requests that he should publicly admonish his party chairwoman Hazel Chu over her misuse of St Stephen’s Green to launch her Seanad campaign.
The candidate apologised after it was revealed she did not seek permission from the Office of Public Works (OPW) to hold the event.
Under a series of by-laws from 1962, political events are not permitted in the park.
Ms Chu said that she did not think she would get many people to show up at the briefing and did not realise that she had to seek prior permission.
But Coalition sources across Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael said that it was not sufficient for Ms Chu alone to comment on the issue.
One senior Fianna Fáil figure said: ‘Eamon Ryan needs to clarify his position and his party’s position on this. If anyone else behaved like this, there would be a furore.’
A source in FG said: ‘Mr Ryan has a responsibility to uphold standards. We cannot have a freefor-all at national museums and cultural institutions where political parties can turn up where and when they like.’
It was, they added, ‘typical Green double standards. The rules apply to everyone else but them’.
Another source warned: ‘Catherine Martin has a case to answer too. Chu is her nominee. She needs
to make it clear what her view is on this in her capacity as Arts and Culture Minister.’
So far within the Greens, Ms Chu has only been criticised for the damage she has allegedly done to the internal processes and electoral strategy of the flailing party.
Senator Pippa Hackett summarised the mood with the claim that her actions ‘not only undermine her role as chair of the party, but
also our position in Government’.
The Greens’ internal civil war over her Independent Seanad candidacy – against the wishes of the party leadership – has also accelerated the belief within Fianna Fáil and Fine
Gael that the parties will have to shore up the Coalition with Independent support if it is to survive.
Outside of Covid-19, the strife-torn Coalition is facing major economic troubles in the autumn.
And the inability of Mr Ryan to control his fractious party has seriously eroded faith in the capacity of the party to remain in Coalition. One senior Fine Gael source said: ‘It reads like a comedy, but the Green knife fight has existential consequences for the Coalition.’
Another uneasy minister said: ‘At least three or four key figures are flirting with the Social Democrats. Those who went with Ryan have no option but to stay. Others though such as Neasa and Patrick Costello, or even Chu, must see the Social Democrats as representing their only option for salvation.’
They added: ‘They are waiting to feast on the Green carcass.’
Ryan, they said, ‘is not in control of his party and Martin has lost her wing of the party, they’ve all left. One day the Green hierarchy will wake up and find there is no party.’
They added: ‘The state the Greens are in now means 84 seats is not a secure majority.’