Why are the Green Party allowing Shell by-pass the law when they were opposed to it before election?

Question

Why are the two Irish Green Party ministers, Eamon Ryan and John Gormley, supporting Shell to by-pass the planning laws in the development of a dangerous gas refinery in Rossport, Mayo when they were completely opposed to this before they were elected and made junior government partners?

Answer 1

you lost me, sorry.

Answer 2

They can say whatever they like in opposition, but when they are elected they lose any scruples and bend to big business. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Green Party councillors have also done the same in Brighton (source 1), where they backed the privatisation of housing and in Germany (source 2), where they voted through cuts to services. The Greens operate according to anarchist principles - each branch can do its own thing and there is no central command. The result is a mish-mash of policies and a tendency towards coalition politics.

If you want a party that sticks to its principles and is uncorruptible - vote for Joe Higgins and the Socialist Party.

Source on Brighton below:

Tenants won't accept outright privatisation

The Green Party published a statement saying that tenants had shown a 'clear preference for an ALMO' [ Arms Length Management Organisation - i.e. privatisation by the back door]. I asked Green Party councillor Bill Randall how they'd determined that tenants favoured an ALMO - he told me it was from 'official council surveys'. According to the local government UNISON branch the response rate to this survey was so low as to make it statistically meaningless.

The Socialist Party has been petitioning door-to-door on the estates against housing privatisation and has attended and helped organise meetings where the issues are explained to tenants. Practically every tenant we have spoken to wants to remain with the council.

This shows how easily the Green Party have been sucked into the system. They couldn't think outside the three options put forward by the government and they endorsed the dubious methods by which the council collects information on 'tenants' preference'.

Thanks to the pressure of the campaign and the opposition of council tenants, the council have (along with the Greens) done a complete u-turn. They have agreed to send a letter to John Prescott demanding that the fourth option be made available.

Answer 3

I'd love to see a link to prove your point.

If it is true the green party know when they went into government they would have to choose there battles.

The greens are the only decent part of the current Irish government, without the greens we wouldn’t have

€5.8bn investment in water services

€20m for  energy research in universities north and south.

A new free to air Irish film channel commencing in 2009.

A new regulator to oversee the adds targeting our children.

A new Viking preservation site and Museum for Waterford

€3.5m for protection of local heritage.

Tighter controls on waste exported for recycling.

A new pilot scheme to encourage domestic energy saving.

a new electricity micro generation programme.

pension fund withdrawal from bomb firms.

New measures for sustainable electricity sector

Increased taxes on oil and gas finds.

Unlike Sinn Fein the endless party of protest who are all things to all people the greens are a real part who understand coalition government is all a bout compromise.

Not that any party in the south would ever touch Sinn Fein with a 10ft barge pole.

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The reason behind making some cars unviable to import was a green issue.  Because such cars are high polluters.

The school issue goes way back to under funding under the previous FF government when we did have the money to sort it out now that we don't you can hardly blame the greens for the incompetency of the the    last FF government.

And as I stated above collation government is all about compromise.  The current government would not be nearly as responsible without the greens as with.

SF are a party of protest who can only spout rhetoric and try to be all things to all people.  That's why Garry Adams was torn to bits on the Questions and Answers Small party special because he his so called policies did stand up.

That's why SF did so badly in the last General election that they lost their status as a Party in the Dail.

The 2 main reasons SF rejected the Lisbon Treaty was because they said we would loose our Neutrality and Europe would be forced to renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty.  Both of these are lies.

I'll march on the 12th next year with the other bigots if you can show me were in the LT it says Ireland looses their neutrality.  And as anyone with eyes can see Europe is plowing on without us with regards to Ratifying the Treaty.  How difficult do you think it's going to be for the other 26 nations to take the Lisbon treaty, remove the bit about all nations needing to say yes and ratifying it under the Prague pact?

Now Ireland will be left without an EU commissioner for much longer than 6 months.

SF has rejected every EU treaty since the Republic joined the EU yet they claimed to be a pro European party.

They say their socialists yet they want to keep our extremely low corporate with the tax rate.

They'll stand with the Shell to Sea campaign yet their happy enough to take party donations from big business.

I've the height of respect for Joe Higgins.  He genuinely stands up for the rights of people in this country, willing to spend time in jail on the bin tax issues and fight racism and discrimination in this country.  He ran his last campaign on a shoe string and can debate and beat anyone on any issue because he passionately believes in what he fights for.

Even with SF's millions of US corporate money and full time paid campaigners they couldn't make any inroads in the South because hey have no substance.  I  Doubt Mary Lou or any other SF member would be willing to spend time in jail for a social issue, unless of course it involved violence.

Answer 4

Bribe, Shell get off scott free and the green party get a nice amount of cash. Win for both sides.