Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

——Ireland needs Green economics like a lettuce needs slugs....". Others described the party as "jihadists". Members of the Green Party said "if the PDs pull the plug, who exactly are they going to go into Government with?" They said "the Greens wouldn't touch those opportunists with a barge pole". I suppose that is why they are cycling out to Áras an Uachtaráin as well. They also said that with Fianna Fáil it is a case of "if you don't like our policies today, we can change them tomorrow".

I hate to disappoint the Green Party Members, but Fianna Fáil did not change its policies at all. The Green Party has naively wandered into a programme for Government with Fianna Fáil written largely over it. It is a Government with Fianna Fáil at its centre, unbowed, unshaken and as arrogant as ever. There are no new ideas and no new solutions. However, this time the Fianna Fáil bicycle has not one mudguard but two. At the front, well used but badly worn, there are the remains of the Progressive Democrats. At the rear are the eager Green Party Members, all shiny and new. This time the bicycle has three stabilisers, bought off in secret deals with the taxpayers' money. There are millions for south Kerry, hundreds of millions for Dublin and hundreds more millions for Tipperary.

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