Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Political power is taken by those in a position of political strength and the Greens are not in that position. They are, as they admit, not needed by this Government and therefore they were not in a position to demand policy goals and did not in the event succeed in achieving any policy goals. Of course, there are reviews, commissions, analyses and some minor worthy achievements, but this remains a Fianna Fail Government where the Greens are merely guests in power. If the two new Ministers are to prove otherwise, they will need to be a great deal more canny in the conduct of their Departments than they were in the conduct of the negotiations with Fianna Fáil.

It is difficult to argue with former Deputy Dan Boyle's own summary in the Irish Examiner this morning, when he stated:

It is not a great document, it may not even be a good document, but it does contain good elements and those elements come from us.

I do not dispute that frank and honest assessment, given the checklist of big ticket items that were so close to the hearts of the Green Party, that is, that they would re-route the M3 to save the Tara heritage landscape, scrap the private hospital building plan, withdraw tax reliefs from private hospitals and reallocate them to public health care provision, stop the use of Shannon by American military in time of war, stop Mountjoy being moved to Thornton Hall and end corporate funding of political parties — I would have loved to have been present when that latter matter was raised with the Minister, Deputy Cowen, and company. The list goes on. Deputy Sargent, for example, told the Portmarnock Residents Group, UPROAR, that he would stop the second runway at Dublin Airport and Deputy Gormley told his constituents in Ringsend that he would stop the incinerator. I know that as a party to coalition one cannot get everything, but by any standards this is a remarkable policy surrender.

I do not want to rain on the Greens' parade because this is an important night for them, but I have great difficulty understanding the party's approach to installing themselves in Government. It is almost as if the Green Party has evolved a new ideology that policy does not count with the people anymore; what counts is being around the Cabinet table. I have great regard for the personal qualities of Deputies Gormley and Ryan, and I am on the record as annunciating as much. The proposition advanced by Deputy Gormley, which I heard him again say this morning, that the Greens were negotiating with Fianna Fail and that it is really of no consequence who else was involved or who else — any other parties or individuals — wants to join it, is a mind-boggling concept. If the Progressive Democrats, for example, are still the Progressive Democrats — although I think that Deputy Harney has retreated mentally to the spiritual home — it is remarkable that a party which in its previous existence on this side of the House opposed the Progressive Democrats so strongly does not think it is of any consequence whether the Progressive Democrats are in or out.

If there is any truth in the rumour that they were foolish enough to try to move Deputy Harney, they most emphatically did not succeed. Deputy Harney thinks she won the election and she thinks she won the people over to her view of the private hospital building programme which, the Minister for Finance told me on a television programme, will cost the taxpayer €70 million per annum for seven years——

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