Sinn Fein and how do they form a government dilemma

FG sat aside for quite a while before talking to anyone, assuming that the top two parties would work something out. SF had more than enough time to woo FF and form a government but apart from declaring victory and waiting for FF to fall at their feet, they did precisely nothing, they didn't even make a serious effort to build a coalition of the left.

None so blind as those who will not see….

You know exactly the point being made. This is just more deflection from you.

Quite obviously the last four years have told us that FF can be trusted in that regard, as they held up their end of the deal and first elected Leo and then Simon as Taoiseach.

Trust is a much much bigger issue when it comes to Sinn Fein. Their record in the North of pulling down governments for little or no reason gives nobody any trust in them.

Difference there is that both Civil War parties wanted to keep SF out so had a large common ground. Generally speaking FF can't be trusted with a whole lot

Wasn't it the DUP, who we know are close FG allies, that collapsed Stormont on the basis of an Irish language bill? And then refused to take their seats as they were going to hold the "deputy first minister" role

SF walked because the First Minister, embroiled in a corruption scandal, would not stand aside (she wasn't asked to resign, just asked to step aside) and because of the longer running misuse of the Petition Of Concern being used to block agreed(by a majority of MLA's) rights.
The DUP pulled it down and used the people as hostages to try to get something that Stormont couldn't give and could not, even if there was majority agreement (there wasn't anyway) effect.

Our last coalition government here fell because the main party did not have the support.

Coalitions collapse, everywhere. Nothing unique about that, here or in north or anywhere else.

The Greens have changed this country dramatically 

Most of the dramatic change in this country was driven by our membership of the EU.
And the Irish Greens are no longer represented there.
Changes will continue to happen across the EU without their input.

I never mentioned anything about 'self preservation'.

What I object to is smaller parties allowing themselves to be used and willingly allowing whatever mandate they have to be diluted and ignored to …eh…help preserve FF or FG dominance.

The greens election manifesto 2020

A 7 per cent per year fall in emissions to reach the EU CO2 reduction target of a minimum 50 per cent by 2030.

Current best case scenario is 29%

EV charge points at all petrol stations

Probably the easiest one to implement, not achieved

retrofit 750,000 houses to improve energy efficiency

Definitely failed

€210 million per annum for retrofitting, and a budget of €40 million to train 20,000 workers who can specialise in this area

Maybe we have 20,000 qualified workers specialised but I can't even find 1 to do dry lining insulation, not achieved

all students in the State be entitled to free public transport

Not achieved

On education, Ms Martin said the party wanted the pupil-teacher ration to drop from the current 25 to 1, to 20 to 1 over the lifetime of the next government.

Not achieved

Actually I'll stop there, if anybody has a list of what they did achieve from their 2020 manifesto it might be a shorter list

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/election-2020-green-party-manifesto-outlines-2-5bn-retrofitting-plan-1.4151719

The achievements they have made in rewetting the bog, FiT, 0% VAT on solar, cycle lanes etc

Exactly, some good ^ and as Red points out some bad/failures too.

So two random people on the internet absolve the Greens from failing to implement a part of their policy. That’s profound.

What is the SF manifesto? We want a United Ireland and we want to be in power in stead of the other lot. Everything else is just a list of promises to everyone and anyone so they can get into power. Who pays for all these promises - "the rich people". Who are the rich people - anyone with more money than you.

At least the Greens have an ideology they believe in and are prepared to try and achieve. SF need to stop trying to be all things to all people and stand up for what they actually believe in. What promises are their priorities and how will they pay for them (the truth).

End the issuing of oil and gas exploration and extraction licences and stand firmly against the importation of fracked gas from other territories. Achieved

Not hard to do in fairness, we never had much oil extraction off our coastline. Important to note it only affects new licences, the existing ones can carry on as usual

Ban single use plastic and set up a bottle deposit and return scheme, to dramatically reduce plastic waste. Achieved.

EU policies - these would have been introduced regardless of the greens making deals with the Civil War parties. If the SF manifesto said all new cars would be EVs by 2035 or I'd be as critical

Get Ireland moving by doubling investment in public transport, committing 10% of transport funds to cycling and 10% to walking. Achieved

Not sure on this one, there's more cycle lanes, sure, but they are vastly under-utilised and the slow moving vehicles are now polluting our environment more as a result, it feels like they just threw them anywhere without any real thought as to how they might get used, is this really the definition of success?

I was waiting 20 minutes the other day for a bus that was 5 minutes away according to TFI Live. In the end it never showed up so I just got a taxi. Maybe I'm the exception and public transport has doubled in efficiency in other parts of the country?

So really they only had one achievement despite having 3 of the 15, or 20% of the ministerial portfolios including transport and environment. Two places where they could have made significant improvements but they fell flat on their face

You seem to be unsure about a lot of things. Ryan stopped theexpansion of the Corribb gas field, he stopped the development of Barryroe, has significantly delayed the Limerick Cork Motorway and other road projects, he got the Foynes railway line being build. He stopped the Tarbert/Ballylongford gas storage plant. None of these actions made economic sense and neither FG, FG or SF would have carried put those actions but the f@@ker did it.

So stop BSing, wake up and smell the coffee