In the space of 10 days the Greens have been hit by a double whammy of resignations and plunged into a public bickering match with their coalition colleagues Fianna Fáil.
Despite allegations and recriminations engulfing the Greens, Galway senator Niall Ó Brolcháin said the party is determined to stay in Government and pursue its agenda.
On February 8, Deirdre De Burca quit her Seanad seat, claiming disillusionment with the party in Government. However it later emerged that she quit as she was annoyed at not having received a European job with Irish commissioner Maire Geoghegan Quinn.
Then, on Tuesday came a real hammerblow when former party leader Trevor Sargent, regarded as one of the most principled individuals in the Dáil, announced he was resigning as Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture.
In September 2007 Dep Sargent contacted gardaí in relation to an alleged assault on a constituent. He said his intention was to ensure the gardaí were aware he had received this representation from the victim of an alleged assault and that the preparation of the case would benefit from witnesses not then interviewed.
However this intervention could be viewed as interference in a Garda case which could “pervert the course of justice”.
In his statement to the Dáil, Dep Sargent said he had contacted gardaí and accepted this was “an error of judgment”. He said he was “not trying to interfere with the judicial process” but accepted that what he had done was “not lawful”. He then resigned from his ministerial position.
The series of events has taken the Green Party by surprise and caused much shock within its ranks. “This came as a bolt out of the blue,” the Green’s Galway senator Niall Ó Brolcháin told the Galway Advertiser. “I was very surprised by what has happened.”
Dep Sargent was seen as one of Dáil Éireann’s most principled members, particularly after standing down as party leader when the Greens entered coalition with Fianna Fáil, as he had promised the electorate he would. However he still remained influential within the party and was described as its “spiritual leader”.
“It was just one of those weeks and I guess things happen in threes,” said Sen Ó Brolcháin. “We all got together last night and held a ‘wake’ for Trevor, well a ‘wake’ isn’t the right word, Trevor isn’t dead. I feel for the people who were working with him in office as they have now lost their jobs. It’s unfair but that’s the nature of politics.”
Dep Sargent’s resignation comes only a week after the resignation of Fianna Fáil’s Willie O’Dea as minister for defence. Allegations have flown around the Dáil that the leaking to the Evening Herald of the letter Dep Sargent wrote to the Gardaí, was carried out by Fianna Fáil, as revenge for the Twitter post by Green senator Dan Boyle which brought the Willie O’Dea controversy into the public domain. Why else, conspiracy theorists ask, would a letter written three years ago suddenly need to come to light now?
“I have heard all sorts of conspiracy theories,” said Sen Ó Brolcháin. “People say it was Fianna Fáil, people say it was Fine Gael, others say it was the Gardaí, which I find unbelievable. None of us know who delivered the envelope to the Evening Herald and why and we’ll probably never find out.”
Despite his upset at seeing his friend and colleague resigning, Sen Ó Brolcháin said the Green Party remains “resolute” despite the “high octane week of resignations” and he said the Greens have no intention of letting the affair lead to the collapse of the coalition.
“I hope we can get away from all this personality politics and get back to the bigger picture,” he said. “Our focus should be on the economy and jobs and we are not going anywhere, we want to see out our term, and we are determined to meet the challenges.
“The Galway-Limerick rail line will open on March 29, over the last three years 30,000 jobs have been created in the green sectors and our view is to have 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050. The Greens are doing a lot of good work that goes under the radar.”
