I was a member of the Irish Green party
from 1983-3, when I let my membership lapse, and 1997-2003. I was a
member of national council, the policy body, 1998-2003 and science
and tech head 1997-2003. I resigned at that point because of an
incident where a TD for the greens turned out to be
an oil millionaire, money inherited from his Yank
granda.
What was particularly worrying was the
lack of reflection about the party and its direction. A dystopia
ensued; points of principle were to be used as bargaining chips.
Shell, Tara etc are well-known and are arguably politics as usual, if
of a craven, immoral and short-sighted-variety; what is not so
well-known is the numerous incidents of criminal activity by the 2007-2011 "greens" in government.
The “greens “ began to use issues
on which they had privileged info (see below) in a way that was
downright evil. They had inside info on bribing of students by DCU
management , with one of the students coming to parliament to give
evidence to Paul Gogarty who brought tenure up as an adjournment
debate; the latter then did nothing in government , and got 20k a
year extra for being education chair in parliament. The state lost
many millions from the litigation that ensued; G's famous outburst
was the day after this defeat. The current leader, Eamon Ryan, who
just lost a bid for redemption in the EU, is a worse case
First of all, two points;
- Ryan's defeat is probably the end of the Irish greens. My sense is that they bet the house on his winning.
- There is no trouble creating another “green” party; fis nua did so in a short time. The problem is attracting people from a wide range of backgrounds, like the 1997-2002 Greens had, from cultural nationalists to (retired) physical force republicans like the late Frank Gallagher, to fundamentalist greens who were very emotional in the period 2006-2007 about the destruction of their party. (Soubresauts aka Joe Thornton comes to mind. )
We are going to rebuild Ireland; we
have no choice, bar emigration. We need to get culture and tech back
and the Greens refused to act in any way other than to support Fianna
Fail in their “policies” on these aspects (essentially, steal all
the IP and destroy the competition)
What is interesting for me in
particular about Ryan is his refusal to act on several aspects of
Irish culture on which he had privileged information. One such piece
of info was given to him personally at his own behest in his
ministerial office in 2007. It showed that the chair of IMRO had been
involved in copyright theft and illegal licensing of Irish music
abroad.
One phone call and Ryan could have
resurrected the now moribund music industry. A delicious karmic
irony, one that younger readers of this site might attend to, is that
he probably would have won the EU seat had he done so. The person who
handed him the documents is very well connected in Dublin (certainly
worth over 504 votes) and should not have had to go to US federal
court to sort this out;
I will leave it at that for now unless
we get yet another defense of the indefensible; there is much, much
more about these scum and their time in government that can be said.
PS I probably should have included this context;
1. While in opposition in late 2003, Ryan contacted the musician above to say that his friend Eleanor Blah..., lawyer for Ireland's national state-funded broadcaster (RTE), urgently need help as IMRO were trying to extort them
2. Both the musician above and Donal Lunny agreed to give evidence; IMRO backed down
3. Ryan was also aware of the Irish music scam, a system that impoverished Irish musicians and destroyed that industry
4. In 2007, HE WAS THE MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING IMRO AND RTE
5. Everything suggests he did indeed make a phone call - and please note his still sumptuous lifestyle on one full income.......
6. apart from the numerous official perks they got while in government simply for selling out everything we ,Greens believed in, there is good reason the believe they got bonuses for being good little whores with
NAMA etc
7. I would not be at all surprised to find that 100k was lodged in a Cayman islands account and wasted in this failed Euro run
PS I probably should have included this context;
1. While in opposition in late 2003, Ryan contacted the musician above to say that his friend Eleanor Blah..., lawyer for Ireland's national state-funded broadcaster (RTE), urgently need help as IMRO were trying to extort them
2. Both the musician above and Donal Lunny agreed to give evidence; IMRO backed down
3. Ryan was also aware of the Irish music scam, a system that impoverished Irish musicians and destroyed that industry
4. In 2007, HE WAS THE MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING IMRO AND RTE
5. Everything suggests he did indeed make a phone call - and please note his still sumptuous lifestyle on one full income.......
6. apart from the numerous official perks they got while in government simply for selling out everything we ,Greens believed in, there is good reason the believe they got bonuses for being good little whores with
NAMA etc
7. I would not be at all surprised to find that 100k was lodged in a Cayman islands account and wasted in this failed Euro run
