Green Party disintegration / split

James Brown wrote: »

There was a report in the paper the other day regarding the use of plastics in Ireland. Been an issue for years. Not a peep out of the Greens. Could it be some members are wondering why they are in with FF/FG if they aren't doing good works?

There has been no report published regarding the use of plastics in Ireland. There has been a Eurostat release on data regarding waste recovery across the EU 27, that might be what you are mistakenly thinking about, here is a link to the material:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Packaging_waste_statistics#Conclusions

The first thing to note is that this relates to the period to 2018, so excludes all of the changes that the Greens have made. It covers a period when FG were in government.

There are some very interesting conclusions. On the positive side, Ireland has the seventh highest recovery and recycling rate of the EU27 at 90.9%(see Table 1). This is a good result and reflects well on the government for having ensured that recycling and recovery arrangements are in place. Our private waste collection service obviously operates well. There is some room for improvement and we should be aiming to get above 95%.

Where the country doesn't perform as well is in the area of generating waste. Per capita we generate the fourth highest amount of packaging waste in the EU27. A lot of this poor performance can be laid at the feet of business and consumers. For example, one difference between an Irish supermarket and one in France or Spain is that there are far less loose vegetables and fruit available in Irish supermarkets as the consumer prefers packages. Similarly, businesses in Ireland also over-packaging. Government responses are limited - but arguably a lot more could be done in respect of education and awareness-raising.

To be fair to the Greens, they have already moved on these issues, getting rid of single-use plastics, increased education and awareness campaigns, new levies and enforcement. To become more aware of the issue, you should read the plan:

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/eb955-minister-ryan-launches-waste-action-plan-for-a-circular-economy/

So some good work done by the previous government and a lot more being worked on by the Greens in government.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

As green policy becomes more mainstream across all political parties (in Ireland at least), one wonders what the point of the Green Party is?

Pointing out the reality that the supposedly Green mainstream policy is nowhere near enough to deal with the scale of the crisis we face. The previous governments utter failure to even live up to the requirements of the Paris agreement shows this.

All that will be left is the Tory's on bicycles from South Dublin with their lovely new cycle lanes and electric BMW SUV's

Imreoir2 wrote: »

Oh no, not cycle lanes, god forbid... :rolleyes:

I'm a cyclist btw

https://twitter.com/greenparty_ie/status/1355215215374315530


Should be an interesting conversation

Imreoir2 wrote: »

The Green party pushed for an end to funding for Greyhound industry, and a ban on coursing in PfG talks, as per their long held policies on both. FF/FG refused to consider these measures and they were not able to get it into the PfG as a result.

The PfG is a compromise that the Green party entered into for the sake of getting some of their policies implemented. Getting everything they wanted over the line was never going to happen.

You can rant about that being a sell out all you like, but it does make you look rather naive.

I think the Green party are the ones who look navie tbh. They should have been far smarter and realised that the FG/FF would have to give in on climate policies as there is huge support for them. The Green party had a great bargaining position to then push for other policies, like the greyhound one, to be implemented but they didn't.

bertiebomber wrote: »

my vote for them was on the strength of the animal issues and they didnt fight hard enough the fianna failers are all invested in coursing & racing so thats why, FF votes matter.


i am not naive i am an animal lover and our country has the name of being the cruelest and most uncaring country in the EU fueling puppy farming, 6000 P/A culled greyhounds thousands of ethnic horses all living on council lands with no fodder and no one prepared to fight for a little mercy and law enforcement.



We are a joke there are 60 horses in limerick on a developers property starving and the guards or the dept of agric wont break the locks so volunteer hay can be brought in. They fed them 3 weeks ago and a new padlock has been fitted what is the point of having laws if certain communities go without punishment.

I micro chip my dog my horse has a chip and passport why do i comply and they dont have too . Our governance is nothing. law enforcement a joke and therefore the elected smug gits are useless in my opinion..

Do you really think if the Greens had tried extra special hard they would have convinced FF/FG to go along with defunding the Greyhound industry and banning coursing?

I don't. The Greens did actually push hard on these issues, and it became very clear that it was a red line for FF/FG that they would not shift from. You can take the view that the Greens should not have gone into government on principle as a result, but that would still not have changed anything as far as greyhound funding or hare coursing is concerned.

bertiebomber wrote: »

my vote for them was on the strength of the animal issues and they didnt fight hard enough the fianna failers are all invested in coursing & racing so thats why, FF votes matter.

A vote for the green party was for them to get a subset of their policies implemented as part of a coalition government. Depending who they went in with, different polices would have been part of the PfG, SF, for example, would have been unlikely to give any concession on taxes that hit home heating using highly polluting fossil fuels (among other items).

You are rather naïve if you voted for them under other pretences.

Augme wrote: »

Even if the Green's weren't in Government Direct Provision would very highly have ended. There was already significant pressure to end DP with a previous report by an Oireachtas Joint Committee stating it wasn't fit for purpose. The public had made it quite clear they didn't like the system, it was a vote loser for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail while there being no political benefit for both FF/FG to retain DP.

As I said, I think they were naive and let themselves be convinced that concessions given to them were because the Green Party demanded them rather than FF/FG being in a position were they would have to change those no matter who went in Government with them. If they were smarter they could have used this position to their advantage to extract more, but they didn't. It was all a bit amateur from them I felt.

Thats very easy to say, but is not actually based on any evidence or facts of any kind, it's just an unfounded opinion.

In Ireland we have a voting system where it is unlikely that a party will ever from a government on their own (despite what happened in the past). I find it very frustrating that in the leadup to elections nobody seems to acknowledge this fact. Instead we have party leaders boxing themselves in about who they will not go into government with and parties saying what they will do as part of their platform but not what they are willing to compromise on when they inevitably have to enter coalition talks.

The net result of this is that they are short-changing their own voters by giving them unrealistic expectations of what they can achieve in government (or who they will actually go into government with) - which often ends up hurting them in the long run.

astrofool wrote: »

"We would have negotiated better" is what every party says all of the time, and it's never true, in every case more concessions in another equally painful area have to be given. Look at Brexit, which, in the end, became a "give us the deal that makes us look least stupid publicly".

The other point to note, if you're publicly announcing how you would negotiate better, and what you will get, then, on average, you will always get a worse deal, because the other side will know which areas you will pay more for.

Of course, everybody believes they are the Delboy Trotter of the making deals world (funny how nobody thinks they're a trump, but that's probably for another thread ).

You know all those opposition parties whinging about the Greens going into coalition with FF and FG - they could have offered the Greens a better deal.

They didn’t, so we are where we are.

Imreoir2 wrote: »

Once FF/FG both ruled out coalition with SF, there was no realistcally possible government that did not include both FF and FG, the only question was who would go in with them. Lab/SD could have gone in instead of the Greens, but there was never a chance of a left government.

I thought ruling out SF was specific to MM rather than FF in general and I was honestly expecting MM to get the boot in order to enable a SF+FF tie-up. Not sure if MLMcD would have gone with it though.