Green Party leader Eamon Ryan on his view of possible Coalition partners

 

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has insisted that consensus is the route to achieving a cleaner Green future.

During a pre-election visit to Athlone a number of weeks ago, he was questioned by the Westmeath Independent as to possible coalition partners after the election.

Ryan said the Greens believe the transition to a clean economy must involve everyone and cannot be achieved through divisive politics and for that reason, they would work with different parties and try and implement change in a collaborative way.
“If there is a whole cadre of people voting for one party, whoever they are, be it Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein whatever, I am not to go and say 'Well I'm going to refuse to talk to you' because then I'm saying we are doing the transition, but we are ignoring the voters that voted for that crowd. I don't think that will work.”

Ryan also defended his party's role in the controversial bank guarantee designed by the Fianna Fail/Green Party government in 2007.

“By the time we went into Government in the summer of 2007, the crash was already formed. Our job was to manage what was going to be an inevitable crash.”
He said if back again, he would repeat the bank guarantee as there were no easy choices and other options like letting banks go to the wall would not have served the Irish people, particularly in light of experiences in other countries such as Argentina.

Looking to the fuure, he said: “There's actually a new economy coming and we should be leaders on that and not laggards.
“The transition away from carbon, restoring nature, it has to be everywhere, it involves everyone, it's in every town, every rural community, every city and it has to be for the better of every town, every rural community, and every city.”