PARTY MEETING:EAMON RYAN has said there is a quiet and grim determination among Green Party members to try to get it back on track.
The party held an informal meeting of staff members and former parliamentarians yesterday to take stock of the situation.
“I got a sense of determination,” said Mr Ryan. “People do want to try to continue.”
He acknowledged that finance was a real problem for the party now that its electoral support has fallen to 1.8 per cent, below the 2 per cent threshold required for State funding.
“We do not literally have a red cent. We need to look at fundraising in a serious way and find innovative means or raising money for the party,” Mr Ryan said.
He also said the party needed a reappraisal, to become involved in “a real open debate” on how it should put forward its principles.
He suggested that the party may need to embrace technology and campaign strongly online.
The party will hold a meeting of its national executive council at the end of this month, before its annual general meeting in May.
It is hoping to initiate a strategy for the next local elections in three years’ time.
A spokesman added that the party is hopeful it will be able to keep its office open and employ at least one administrator.
He said it might mean some diversion of membership fees – there are between 1,500 and 2,000 members – from constituencies to the central office.
The party has also been in contact with its counterparts in Europe to see how Green movements elsewhere have coped with heavy elector loss.
“There have been similar experiences in Belgium, France, the Czech Republic and Germany, where the Greens have lost all or most of their public representatives.
“We need to see the best way that we can move on,” he said.
The party lost all six Dáil seats in the general election garnering a total of just 41,040 first preference votes for all 43 candidates.
The party had prepared itself for a devastating result but hoped that Trevor Sargent might keep his seat, with an outside chance Mr Ryan might also survive.
Outside the RDS count in Dublin last Saturday night, party leader and former minister for the environment John Gormley acknowledged it was a “sad day for the party”.
“We have suffered a major defeat. But the party will regroup,” he said.
“We will continue. We’re a party with a set of beliefs and values and a vision for the future.”
