Europe has led the way on environmental reform, Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, said today at the launch of his party's European election manifesto at the Alliance Francaise
in Dublin.
“We regard these European elections as extremely important. From a Green perspective, Europe has led the way in relation to environmental reform,” Mr Gormley said.
“The Irish Green Party have had an influence on the way Europe has operated. We have very, very close links indeed to our European colleagues. We are part of the European Greens.”
This was seen in EU reaction to the Irish Green initiative on energy-efficient light-bulbs: “Europe brought forward its legislation with the result that, across Europe now, we will have the phase-out of energy-inefficient light-bulbs, come September.”
Green candidate in Dublin, Senator Deirdre de Burca said: “In relation to the Green initiatives that are being discussed and debated and voted upon in the European Parliament, the track record of some of our sitting MEPs leaves a lot to be desired.”
Criticising the voting record of the incumbent Dublin MEPs on a number of green issues, she said: “It does really point up the need to have a strong voice representing Dublin in the European Parliament.”
Urging voters not to support Eurosceptic candidates, she continued: “It’s very clear that, for the next period of the European Parliament we need a policy of constructive engagement between Ireland and the European Union.
“If we elect people who are hostile to the European project, who are actually only interested in opposing and resisting positive
initiatives that are coming from the EU, we are not going to serve the interests of this country well.”
Senator Dan Boyle said he expected Brian Crowley MEP of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s Sean Kelly to take two out of three seats in his Euro-constituency of Ireland South.
There would be a “melee” for the final seat with three to five candidates each having about 10 per cent of the vote. He detected a “latent” Green Party support which could be converted from second or third preferences to number one votes.
This was his objective in the remaining two weeks of the campaign, despite running on a “Green Party shoe-string” budget. “We don’t have the resources, the questionable resources, I would say, of other candidates,” Mr Boyle said.
