Cowen’s broadside to Greens: ‘Be careful’
A REVOLT is growing among rural Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil TDs who fear Green policies will cost them their seats.
Anger in the backbenches of the two larger coalition parties has reached boiling point over ideological spats with their Green partners in Government.
This weekend, senior Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen openly warned the Green Party to be ‘careful’ not to punch above their ‘political weight’.
Tensions erupted in recent weeks within Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the Green Party’s support for An Taisce in the row over the proposed €140m Glanbia cheese factory in the southeast.
In the mid-west, Government Oireachtas members are seething over Green leader Eamon Ryan’s handling of the crisis engulfing Shannon Airport.
In the midlands, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs and senators are angry with the Greens over further restrictions on turf cutting.
Laois-Offaly TD Mr Cowen told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The Greens need to be careful. They’re starting to punch above their weight.’
Mr Cowen also hit out at the party’s calls for the national herd to be cut, a policy he described as ‘lazy and absurd’.
In a preview of clashes to come, Mr Cowen warned that agriculture should not carry the full weight of the Carbon Tax Bill.
He told the MoS: ‘There are, in the Programme for Government, responsibilities on all industry and sectors regarding emission reductions, with no special category on agriculture. They might be called the Greens, but they don’t own the green agenda. It’s all our responsibility.’
Concerns are elevated within Fianna Fáil over what sources described as the ‘inert’ nature of Mr Ryan’s ministerial performance in areas such as Shannon Airport.
One Fianna Fáil minister said: ‘He [Ryan] has been sleepwalking through the department, he is very inert.
There appears to be very little going on there. There needs to be a major rebooting of the agenda. If he was one of ours, he would be in trouble come the next reshuffle.
‘He appears to be a bit of a daydreamer. Micheál [Martin] has had to tell him to get his skates on. The mid-west is in a fury over this [Shannon Airport]. It’s astonishing – he still hasn’t appointed a new chair of Shannon six months after it became vacant.’ Independent Clare TD Michael McNamara also hit out at Mr Ryan’s performance on Shannon, saying: ‘Shannon was a Fianna Fáil icon, set up by Lemass and Fianna Fáil. Now, this Fianna Fáil-led Government appears to be closing it down and building runways in Cork instead.’
Mr Ryan also came in for scathing criticism at this week’s Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting.
Clare Senator Timmy Dooley warned: ‘The failure of the Minister for Transport to engage with the aviation sector by not having a plan in place to restart aviation [means] it is now time for Taoiseach to take control of this difficult situation.’
Tensions with the Green Party are also evident among the Fine Gael backbenches. One senior party figure said: ‘It’s a free-for-all at the moment. Everyone thinks they can say anything. No-one is minding the shop. No-one’s in control. It’s all very combustible.’
Another frustrated rural TD said: ‘You can’t farm, you can’t build factories, you can’t shoot in rural Ireland because of the Greens. We are facing wipe-out in rural Ireland if we don’t get them under control.’
‘They don’t own the green agenda’