Another one bites the dust

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. That could be the summary of Deirdre DeBurca's political career which appears to have come to an end this morning. DeBurca failed to be elected to the Dail in both the 2002 and 2007 elections in Wicklow, each time being the 2nd last candidate to be eliminated. She was then appointed to the Seanad by Bertie Ahern as part of the deal with the Green party. In the European Elections in June she faced the embarrassing situation of not reaching a quarter of a quota to be able to claim expenses back, while at the same time her arch nemesis Patricia McKenna did. Finally, she picked the wrong week to quit with George Lee having already used up all the column inches on the failure of the political system.

Her resignation letter makes for interesting reading. She says "I can no longer support the Green Party in government, as I believe that we have gradually abandoned our political values and our integrity and in many respects have become no more than an extension of the Fianna Fail party." That is a serious kick in the teeth to John Gormley and the rest of the Green parliamentary party. She follows up with "I have lost confidence in you as Party Leader" which is even more damning.

She continues by outlining the difficulties the Greens have in dealing with Fianna Fáil and FF's unwillingness to engage on issues agreed in both Programmes for Government. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following politics over the last few years. It was much easier for the PDs to call the shots because their policies were more closely aligned with FF's. The Greens on the other hand, having an ideology and ethics, were never going to get along with their senior partner. However, DeBurca leaves the knockout punch until the end where she says that things "reached a point where I, and most of the people I know, will be unable to vote Green in the next election." Ouch!

What will be interesting to watch today, is whether DeBurca comes out on the offensive on talk radio like George Lee did on Monday and then to see if Gormley hides like Enda Kenny did. Due to the small number of Green TDs and Senators there aren't many others who can go out and bat for Gormley. Dan Boyle and Eamonn Ryan will do their bit but I would strongly advise against putting Mary White or Paul Gogarty on the national airwaves.

New representative in the Rotten Borough

This morning they counted the votes in the Seanad byelection caused by the election of Labour's Alan Kelly to the European Parliament in June. Under the rules, even though Councillors, TDs and outgoing Senators can vote for the various panels immediately after a general election, only sitting members of the houses of the Oireachtas can vote for casual vacancies. Talk about making a closed shop even more closed. Of course this happens to work in favour of the government at the moment as had all Councillors had been allowed to vote, the seat would have been retained by the opposition - probably swinging from Lab to FG unless a deal was struck.

In the end the Green's Niall Ó'Brolcháin, former Galway City Councillor and Mayor, was elected by taking 119 of the 205 valid votes cast. This is the same person who after losing his seat in Galway City Council in the local elections in June announced his retirement from public life and who also suggested that the Greens should leave their current coalition if FG and Lab made them an offer. It will be interesting to see if he continues in his maverick (but not Gogarty-esque) ways or will he have to toe the line now that he is part of the establishment.

True Irish Wit

Ah Deputy Paul Gogarty, you've really raised the level of esteem in which politics is held in this country. With a simple 6 word refrain, you've joined the ranks of great Irish orators such as Emmet, Davitt, Parnell, Larkin. Now if only you could direct your anger at the right section of the Dáil, your bedfellows from FF.



With all due respect, you're a muppet.

New Programme for Government

After Ciaran Cuffe's bluff being called, the Greens stayed at the table until just before last night's main evening news to agree the new programme for government. With the members' convention only 14 hours away you'd think that speedy dissemination would be key but instead nothing appeared over night. Tweets started appearing from party members who arrived at the RDS and still had no documentation to read. Eventually at 11:10 the document was released online and printed copies distributed to the masses shortly thereafter. Nice to see that an informed decision will be made having such a long period of time to digest the contents of the PfG.

The document itself is full of nice aspirations but short on detail. There are no costings anywhere and no indications of where the money might come from to implement any of the proposals. There are a lot of green agenda items ticked off - GM food, forestry, fur farming and public transport. Indeed it is interesting to note that one of the few firm deadlines in the document is 2016 completion of Metro North and the Dart Interconnector. However it is also worth noting that these have been key parts of PfGs and transport policies since the mid ninties so I won't be holding my breath on that.

The CIO role is a good idea, but some of the ideas are very wierd. For a country with some of the highest electricity costs in Europe, to set ourselves up as a Data Centre hub for cloud computing seems odd at best. Providing broadband to every house by 2012 (subject to EU funding) is also laughable. This should have been done at least 8 years ago if not longer. 100Mb to schools is great until you realise that the IT equipment in most schools is donated 4 year old computers that continually fail. Also the students will just use it to access Bebo and Facebook since there will be no investment in upskilling teachers to deal with the new medium.

Of course, all this is moot. The PfG will be accepted and NAMA will fail to be rejected. The NAMA legislation will then be pushed through and assets transferred from the banks before the budget. When the FF back benchers see the budget cuts that are announced the heave will begin and the government will fall. So all that will be achieved is putting the nation in hock for €50-€60B. Go on the Greens!