Greens and FF
- exchange policy documents
By - Deaglán de
Bréadún, Political
Correspondent.
Fianna Fáil has sent a nine-page analysis setting
out areas of common interest to the Green Party in an
exchange of documents that took place between the two
parties yesterday, The Irish Times has learned.
Deaglán de Bréadún, Political
Correspondent, reports.
The Greens have reciprocated with a position paper of
their own and the two parties have also sent each other
copies of their respective election manifestos. The two
sets of documents were exchanged yesterday morning.
The Greens have already been consulting and taking
soundings among their wider membership and this process
will intensify over the weekend. There is heavy e-mail
traffic between Green Party head office and the
membership on the issues involved.
The Fianna Fáil position paper is based on an
examination of the Green manifesto and is set out in the
form of bullet-points.
Despite losing his seat in Cork South-Central, Green
finance spokesman Dan Boyle is centrally involved in the
contacts. No meeting between the two sides has been
arranged as yet with a decision in this regard expected
after the weekend.
In its own election manifesto, Fianna Fáil pledged
to initiate a "Green Energy Revolution" with a variety of
measures including greater use of alternative energy
sources, establishing a new bio-fuel industry, promoting
the purchase of environmentally-friendly cars, phasing
out incandescent light bulbs, carbon off-setting of all
official air travel and the establishment of a high-level
commission to implement climate change strategy.
For their part, the Greens have indicated that in any
coalition arrangement with another party they would be
seeking key policy changes in the areas of climate
change, education and local government. These would
include reform of planning laws, increased investment in
public transport and schools and the creation of regional
assemblies with significant local power.
In any negotiations, Fianna Fáil are likely to
seek reassurance that the Greens would be stable
coalition partners.
"Bertie Ahern wants to be looking forward rather than
looking over his shoulder all the time", a well-placed
Fianna Fáil source said, adding that stability was
not a matter of arithmetic, it meant having the courage
to withstand pressure from outside.
Acting leader of the Progressive Democrats and Minister
for Health Mary Harney, seen as pivotal to any coalition
arrangement, has taken a weekend break but will be
re-engaging with political developments on her
return.
Meanwhile, Terry McEniff, election agent for Fianna
Fáil TD Dr. Jim McDaid, denied that the re-elected
deputy had threatened to withdraw support for his
party.
He claimed Dr. McDaid was "quoted out of context", but
added that the former minister had "a lot of objectives
for Donegal North-East".
Acting in a personal capacity, trade union official Mike
Jennings has contacted the Green Party and Independent
TDs Tony Gregory and Finian McGrath, urging them to
oppose the re-appointment of Mary Harney as Minister for
Health because, he claimed, she was promoting a "private
two-tier model" for the health service. He said
supporting Ms. Harney "could destroy them
politically".
Meanwhile a Fine Gael spokesman said efforts to assemble
an alternative coalition partnership were continuing.
© The Irish Times, 2nd. June 2007.
