THE IRISH GREEN Party is asking the advice of other European green parties on how to rebuild and reboot after February’s general election wipeout.

The Greens, who had been in government with Fianna Fail, emerged with no TDs at all after the February 25 election. Even former Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan and Greens leader John Gormley lost their seats after the country went to the polls.

This weekend a delegation from the Greens, led by Senator Dan Boyle, is travelling to Budapest in Hungary to meet with their European counterparts. The biannual European Green Party Council meeting will debate issues ranging from human rights to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

According to Boyle though, the Irish Green Party will be also looking for advice and discussion “from other green parties that have suffered electoral reverses, including Germany, Belgium, France and the Czech Republic, to learn from their experiences”.

Boyle hopes the tips they receive will be useful at the Irish Greens’ annual general meeting in May. John Gormley has already indicated he is stepping down to make way for a new leader.

However, Boyle already has his own ideas about where it all went wrong for the Greens. He says:

As a political organisation the Irish Green Party did its best at emphasising the positives of our policies – job creation, reduced heating costs through better insulation, lower tax for greener cars – but there is no doubt that we paid a price politically for endorsing unpopular policies….

We have learned – the hard way – that you cannot, as a political party, devote all of your energy to fighting unpopular fights and defending unpopular measures, then expect to get re-elected.

He was more succinct in a Tweet this morning about the purpose of his visit to Budapest: