GREEN PARTY LEADER Eamon Ryan has hit out at the “arrogance” of the current government as he plots the party’s comeback in next year’s local and European elections.
The former Communications Minister is set to stand in the European elections and hopes his party can get councillors elected in Dublin and elsewhere in the country as it looks to rebuild in the wake of its near obliteration at the last general election in 2011.
The Green Party has around a thousand members and is running with around two per cent support in the polls but Ryan believes that with more canvassing in the coming months that can be pushed up to four per cent.
“I don’t have a specific target except just having bright, capable people representing local communities,” he told TheJournal.ie this week,
“I think, our experience out there canvassing at the moment – we’re canvassing is a lot – is that we can actually recover. There is a space for green politics in Ireland.”
Ryan has confirmed he will run in the Dublin region – he hopes it will be a five seater in the European boundary redraw – and said that a “good number” of the Greens’ former parliamentary party will also run.
Already former senator Dan Boyle has confirmed he plans to run in Cork next year while it’s also understood that former junior minister Ciaran Cuffe plans to return to politics. But heavyweights like former leaders John Gormley and Trevor Sargent are likely to remain on the sidelines.
For Ryan, the message on the doorsteps will be simple: “There’s a better economy. One of the lessons from the crash is we need sustainable economics and Greens more than anything else are about sustainable economics.”
He criticised the government for the sell-off of State assets and the abandonment of public transport infrastructure pointing out that shelved projects like Metro North and DART underground could have been funded.
“They took the easy political option, and the IMF criticised them for this, by cutting capital more than they needed to,” he said.
Ryan said that he will be closely watching how the Greens get on in the forthcoming German elections and acknowledges that the party will need to raise membership and money to ensure its own electoral comeback.
On the current government he criticised the proposal to abolish the Seanad and the “certain arrogance in government”.
He added: “I saw [Public Expenditure and Reform Minister] Brendan Howlin last week at something and it was this defensive of: ‘How dare you question us’ and I think it’s… I think they’re imbibing some of their own, what’s it called, Kool Aid.
“They have a slight sense of preciousness around their own position at the moment that could do with a bit of a ‘schlap’!”
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