INSIDE POLITICS - GREEN MEETING

It's just after 3pm and there are maybe 300 Greens at the crucial meeting that will decide its future. It's a horrible day in Dublin, unrelenting rain, some of it heavy. Will that dampen the Greens, the most ideologically driven party of them all? Hardly. I'd say as the hours wear on, the bulk of the Dublin membership will descend on the Mansion House.

Last night, the look of relief and of achievement was etched on the faces of the party's leadership - and even Ciaran Cuffe, who was perceived as the most wary of FF, said he was delighted with the deal.

But with the Greens its bottom-up democracy. And it just took a couple of minutes of cogitation to realise that this was not in the bag.

There is a minority in the party who don't want to see it deal with FF, come hell or high water. There are other minorities too for whom there can be no compromise on Shannon, or on incineration, or on colocation, or on the motorwarys, or on other issues.

Certainly, the leaked details that the Times did so well to get this morning was damaging. It focused on what the Greens had failed to secure (Shannon, the M3, colocation, Tanaiste) rather than the gains the party had made.

More details kind of filtered out this morning that showed that the Greens have secured some big ticket concessions on the environment and climate change, plus a couple of eye-catching promises on medical cards for young children, those with intellecutal disabilities, plus the securing of funding for the centres who use ABA methods for autistic children.

However, will it be enought to win over delegates. You must remember that there are still many 'fundies' in the Greens as well as the more pragmatic and realistic 'realos'.

And for the Greens to go into Government, they will need to secure a 66% mandates. That's a huge ask by any reckoning.

Talking to Greens today, many think it's delicately balanced and will depend on the turn-out. The more who arrive, the better chance it has of succeeding. But already there's doubts about whether or not it's enough to sway enough.

And there are also rumours circulating that Trevor Sargent may offer to step down as leader tonight. He said he would not lead the Greens into a Government with Fianna Fail. That's just about to happen. There's also a sense that the party membership may try to encourage him to stay.

We are all on tenterhooks!

INSIDE POLITICS - THE FINAL MOMENTS

By midnight on the night of the election count, it was clear that Fianna Fail would need to court the support of others if it wanted to get back into Government.

The party had done astoundingly well but even with its impressive haul of 78 seats was tantalisingly close but not quite there. To put it in a mountaineering vein, Everest is 8,850 metres high but the last few hundred metres is the hardest.

It was hardly a unique position for Fianna Fáil to find itself in. They were a couple short five years ago. But then the PDs had eight TDs and that was never going to be a problem. And they also found themselves coming up short in 1997. And it’s those events of ten years ago that makes the courting of the Greens so remarkable.

Bertie Ahern’s first election as leader of Fianna Fail saw the party win 77 seats. The PDs hit a bit of a trough that time, returning only four. The combined strength of both parties was 81. The situation facing Fianna Fail a decade later is uncannily similar. Granted, together they have one less at 80. But now, as then, there are enough independents there to allow them forge a deal.

So why have they worked so hard to put together what amounts to the State’s first Fianna Fail-led Rainbow rather than relying only on the traditional props of the PDs and ‘like-minded independents’?

On the face of it, it’s hard to fathom. On the Sunday morning following the election, Bertie Ahern spoke of the PDs and the Independents being his first preference and the Greens being his clear second preference.

And that seemed to make sense. If you rewind to 1997, the consensus was that FF and the PDs could do it with only two gene pool deputies. In the event, they secured the support of four non-aligned TDs (but all with hues of Fianna Fail, from light to deep). Then, many people predicted the government would last a year. But it lasted five, without any real bother.

So why change such a winning arrangement? The PDs needed to be in Government in order to survive. And FF would just need to secure the services of only three independents (though only one with a provenance in the party).

For the Greens, last week’s marathon talks with Fianna Fail was their political coming of age. Forty hours of tough negotiations were grinding – and you could see the tiredness etched all over John Gormley and Dan Boyle’s face on Friday evening.

When they broke down after six days, a whole host of theories (benign, conspiracy and Machiavellian) started doing the rounds. One was that FF were only stringing the Greens along to make sure the independents didn’t demand too much in their separate negotiations? The other prime theory it was all designed to muddy the waters and allow FF to enter negotiations with its real target, the Labour Party. Pat Rabbitte committed his party to support Enda Kenny until the vote for Taoiseach on Thursday – after that all votes would be off.

But anyone who watched the body language of both parties on Friday evening knew there was something else afoot. At their press conference Greens looked exhausted, disappointed – as if the race had been run. But within half an hour, one of the FF negotiators Seamus Brennan was on RTE’s Six-One News. He was remarkably upbeat and positive and grabbed every available second to praise Trevor Sargent and the Greens. In the background, the Fianna Fail negotiators were sanguine and relaxed. It wasn’t all over. The Greens no longer had the deadline of the special meeting on Sunday looming over them. If they took a bit of time to reflect on it over the weekend, both sides could return for a second bite.

And that’s how it happened. Informal contacts continued over the weekend. And in a remarkable article in a Sunday newspaper, Bertie Ahern used language you would never imagine him using in his political career.

"I belive that an environmentally sustainable economy is the only way forward for Ireland and the planet."

Bertie Ahern? It could have been taken straight out of a Sargent speech. That was very significant. And there was more. FF were genuinely open to new ideas. In the problem areas like climate change, transport, health and education, – where all the “insurmountable” obstacles were– Fianna Fail believed that the Green Party’s policies were “not incompatible” with our own. John Gormley gave a clear signal on RTE Radio’s This Week programme that the Greens were willing to talk. Within minutes FF had contacted him. The game was back on.

The speed at which things resumed was as breath-taking as last week. Within hours the Greens had produced a paper on the areas where there were differences. By noon yesterday, Fianna Fail had responded. All afternoon, negotiators from both parties shuffled between their headquarters and the Dail to take part in a series of bilaterals and informal talks.

The parties began drafting a programme for government based on agreed areas. The ‘bit ticket’ areas where there was still contention were parked. And from early afternoon, it was clear that those issues would be thrashed out by two men, Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent.

Ahern arrived into Government buildings in late afternoon, departed for a short while and then returned. Shortly before 7pm, Sargent left his party headquarters to make the short ten minute walk to Leinster House. He was accompanied by general secretary Dónall Geoghegan. John Gormley cycled home to change his shirt. The third negotiator, Dan Boyle, in Leinster House. Gormley and Boyle said that there were still gaps, that it wasn’t a done deal.

“Close but no cigar,” said Boyle, summing up the delicate balance between success and failure.

But why did FF go to such efforts to woo the Greens if they didn’t really need them? It was nothing to do with filibustering. It was partly the security of numbers, certainly. But there was also a sense that 15 years of FF and the PD would make it into a tired unelectable government – that the Greens would give renewal and reinvigoration, make the government as a whole more attractive to the next generation.

And that's why later on this morning the Greens will walk out of Government Buildings with a deal.

A version of this appeared in this morning's Irish Examiner

INSIDE POLITICS - BREAKDOWN OF NEGOTIATIONS

On Politics
Harry McGee
It is decreed by nature that school examinations and talks on coalition government can only take place when the sun is splitting the rocks and there’s not a cloud in the sky.

This week must have felt like doing the Leaving Certificate again for the Fianna Fail and Green Party negotiators, cooped up indoors in an intense, tortuously long and energy-sapping experience, trawling through the minutiae derived from dense texts.


And as the exhausted Green party negotiators emerged into the June sunshine yesterday evening, they had the look of students who got a little tripped up by a trick question on the honours paper.

In a week that wavered between hope and despondency for both parties, it looked for a couple of hours early yesterday afternoon that a deal might be possible.

Both sides had compromised on a lot of issues during these marathon talks that ultimately lasted over six days. But the Fianna Fail negotiators thought yesterday afternoon that enough had been offered, that there was more than a sliver of hope that a deal could be forged. But as the afternoon wore on, it became clear that it was all slipping away. The three-person negotiating team for the Green Party went back to the wider reference group (comprised of 12 key members including the six TDs and Dan Boyle). And it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen.

It was always going to be difficult. The gulfs between policy and outlook were of Grand Canyon proportions. The biggest were identified early and were never bridged, were never close to being bridged.

strangely, we look at the potentially explosive mix of the Greens and the PDs and think of blockage. But that was never the issue. Indeed, last night the PDs confirmed that Mary Harney had signed up to a Bertie Ahern-led government on Thursday morning and Brian Cowen said as much yesterday as he entered the talks. And while the Greens say that this did not form any part of the negotiations, it’s clear that there was an – let’s phrase it delicately – an unspoken understanding that the PDs would be part of the mix.

The talks, instead, foundered on ideological gaps on a range of policy areas. Trevor Sargent spelt out some of them at the press conference yesterday.
The Greens, being the Greens, wanted more urgent action on climate change. Nothing would have outranked that from their perspective. This, after all, is what the party is about. Sure it is more savvy politically than in the past but there were core principles like this one that were never going to be sacrificed on the altar of expediency.

There were no specifics. But it’s as clear as a pikestaff that they argued for carbon taxes and a 3% annual reduction in carbon emissions. It’s likely that it also argued for congestion charges and – of course, another Green pillar – prioritising public transport over road-building.

There were other areas of disagreement. None were specified by either side last night but health, education, planning and local government just proved to be massive stumbling blocks.

"In each of these areas substantial blockages still remain. Because of this, the party does not believe it could enter government and stand over the policy proposals."

What was intriguing was that the talks had no concluded in bitterness or recrimination. They had taken place in a cordial fashion and the Greens had learned a lot during the process. But it was over. There was not enough give from either side.
The Greens could not sell what was on offer to its membership.

And while both sides said yesterday that their doors remained open, it is unlikely that they will revive the process. The gulf is still too wide. Time is against them. It’s almost certain now that Bertie Ahern will pursue the narrower option with the PDs and independents.

Fianna Fail had a massive advantage going into the negotiations. Its 78 seats meant that it didn’t ultimately need the greens, and so winning its support would be mainly a ‘belts and braces’ operation.

Its seriousness was clear - that was immediately evident from the composition of its vastly experienced team of Cowen, Dempsey and Brennan.

From its perspective, the Greens displayed a little naivety at times during negotiations. Cowen and Dempsey put a lot of emphasis on the financial costs of some of the Greens proposals. It was felt that their lack of experience in government gave them a certain lack of appreciation of the money aspects of what they proposed.

Stranger coalitions have been formed since 1948 but those governments have been forged on the anvil of necessity. Here there was none. Ultimately FF could take it or leave it as an optional multiple choice. But in the end, like the A students they are, they decided to stick to what they knew best. Enter Mary Harney, Jackie Healy Rae and Beverly Flynn.

INSIDE POLITICS - GREEN BY NAME, GREEN BY NAIVETY?

I was off for the last couple of days, down in Kerry as it happened, where the eavesdropped conversation in pubs and cafes was mostly - surprise, surprise - about politics and not about Big Brother.

Upon arriving back, I discovered that by missing two full days of talks I had missed, erm, nothing. When the Greens came out of Government buildings last night, they gave the same essential answer they had given for the previous five days... that some progress had been made but that there were significant gaps (or should that read gulf or canyons) between them on policy issues.

Naturally, there was a greater sense of urgency about last night. It had been nominally chosen as the deadline for concluding the talks, given that the Greens must go through a process of putting any potential deal to its party membership.

Dan Boyle's own slightly rueful assessment of it was very telling:

"We went into these talks on the basis that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

It seems that we have agreed a lot and then after talking for five days it also seems like we have agreed nothing."

For in reality, the huge gaps that were identified on the very first day of talks last weekend were the ones that looked like denying a deal. They were parked but when they returned to them, it's clear that Fianna Fail wasn't in a mood of being over-generous or of bending over backwards.

FF is in a position of staggering dominance. It doesn't really need the Greens. It has 78 deputies compared to a measly six for the Greens. You can understand where it's coming from. The Greens want to ban corporate donations. It's a core principle for the party, says Trevor Sargent. Well Fianna Fail don't want to ban corporate donations. And it's a core principle for FF. So, FF might agree to make the system a little bit more transparent (or in reality, given the impression that it is making the system more transparent) but otherwise it's not going to budge.

Where does that leave the Greens? It means they have to try to wring concessions from FF in other key areas, where there may be more give. What are they? Environmental issues certainly, including carbon taxes and more robust initiatives to tackle climate change. The health services and the controversial co-location project. The economy, especially FF's determination to reduce the higher rate of tax by a further 1%.

There is a difference in the decision-making process within both parties that has been emphasised by this process. Whatever the political leadership decided in the two big parties, the membership and the other politicians go along with. We've heard a couple of FF backbenchers griping about the Greens this week but if a deal is struck they'll just have to button up and go along with it.

I remember doing a phone-around of FF TDs after the 1992 election. I spoke to about 40 in all. All but one (Micheál Martin, as it happened) swore blind that they'd rather sup with the divvil than go into a coalition with the Labour Party. Then the deal happened and they all meekly went along with it. Harsh political lesson number one. Never forget that FF and FG backbenchers are the chorus line.

With the Greens it's different. Their membership wield a lot of power. A two-thirds majority of the 700-800 delegates expected at the Mansion House will be required. The negotiating team know that they need to present a strong deal with loads of tangibles to sell. If it's seen as too much of a capitulation - a sell-out of the most important core principles to go into Government - it spells only one thing.... c-u-r-t-a-i-n-s.

They've resumed this morning and will be there for another two hours at least, until 1pm and maybe a little later.

And even on the off-chance - and it is an off-chance - that a deal is struck, we may still not have a government. The next stage will be consideration of, and by, the PDs. There's a game of chess being played. Not only aren't we in the room to witness it. We don't know the rules. Worse, we don't even know if there are any rules.