Profile John Gormley - New leader of the Green Party, 25 years after helping to establish it in Ireland.It was a long, hard road from bicycle to Ministerial car, but John Gormley's ambition and impatience have paid off. Now he will lead the Green Party through a daunting period, writes Carl O'Brien.
A few months ago, John Gormley was cycling frantically around south Dublin, telling anyone who would listen that he was about to lose his Dáil seat. He was picking street fights with his Dublin South East constituency rival in Ranelagh over election posters. He was railing against life on "Planet Bertie" where you get loans you don't have to pay back.
Not surprisingly, his crumpled linen suit was beginning to fray at the edges.
That was then. This week, the sharply dressed Minister for the Environment was elected leader of the Green Party. He spoke warmly about working constructively with Fianna Fáil in Government. He even took a spin in his new ministerial car (don't worry, it's an environmentally friendly Toyota Prius).
The blurry transformation has had many doing a double-take. But, to those who know him best, it's not all that surprising. They recognise a person who, as well as being a committed campaigner, has displayed a steely ambition and political nous since his earliest days in politics.
Now Gormley, as the public face of the party, finds himself in the most challenging of positions, performing a delicate balancing act between upholding the principles of the Green Party on one hand, and meeting the pragmatic demands of coalition politics on the other.
His most important test, however, will be whether he has the ability to strengthen the party, broaden its appeal, and steer it through the choppy waters of Government over the next five years.
Few doubt his commitment and enthusiasm to get the job done, although some sound a note of concern over his temperament.
"John has two buttons," says one senior Green Party member. "There's the complete obsessive position, where he's all over a policy. And then there's the slouch button, where he switches off and is completely uninterested."
Another senior member is complimentary, but warns: "He can freak out a bit sometimes. He'll panic occasionally and fear the worst. It's a tactic he's used to his advantage in getting people onside, especially when he thinks his seat is in danger, but he'll need to tone that down as leader."
The "Rumble in Ranelagh", as his duel with Michael McDowell was later dubbed, is a case in point. Incandescent with rage, he tore into the former minister for justice, accusing him of distorting Green Party policies. The performance has since been hailed as a pivotal vote-winning moment for the Greens, although he sailed perilously close to high farce and ridicule in the process.
Gormley's impatience for change was evident during the infancy of the Green Party in the early 1980s. In the sometimes strange and sanctimonious world of Green politics, he displayed that most unusual of commodities: a hard-edged political nose.
He was the first to use political literature with his photograph on it (the Greens were against personality politics), lobbied strongly to change the name of the party (from the Green Alliance to the Green Party) and helped to organise political rallies with bands such as the Waterboys in the old Olympic Ballroom in Dublin.
"He was thinking big. He was far more politicised than the rest of us at that stage," recalls one Green Party deputy. "I remember in the early days we were discussing our party political broadcast for the next election. One person - influenced by Buddhist teaching - suggested broadcasting two minutes of silence. Gormley exploded, denouncing the idea as ridiculous."
Despite his ambition, he was initially a reluctant politician. Seeing himself as more of a campaigner, he eventually stood for the party in Dublin South East in the 1989 general election when no one else would put their name forward.
He surprised many by securing 10 per cent of the vote. From then on, there was no going back. Another breakthrough came in 1991 when he was elected on to Dublin City Council. But disappointment came a year later when he lost badly in the 1992 general election as Labour's Spring tide swept up votes from all directions.
Disconsolate, and with no money left in his bank account after a largely self-financed campaign, he briefly reconsidered life in politics. He stuck with it and went on to become Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1994. Three years later, he scraped a Dáil seat after beating Michael McDowell by just 27 votes.
Over the course of those years, his ambition became apparent to many colleagues. They saw him lobbying hard among members to be selected as Lord Mayor in the face of stiff internal party competition. He decided not to stand for leadership in 2001, but pushed for the creation of the position of chairman of the party, which he went on to fill. "I remember him saying at the time that while he wasn't leader, he'd be the minister if we went into government," says one senior Green. "The ambition was very evident back then."
POLITICS WASN'T AN obvious career path for Gormley, who was born in Dublin in 1959 but moved to Limerick shortly afterwards. His father, an engineer from Co Donegal, wasn't a member of any party, nor was his mother, a Co Wexford woman. The only link his family had with politics was that former Progressive Democrat leader Des O'Malley lived two doors down from them on their middle-class housing estate in Corbally.
At primary level he attended the local CBS and moved to St Munchin's College at secondary level, where he was a boarder for several years. This is one of Limerick's most famous rugby schools, but he dropped out of the sport after junior level.
After school he travelled to Germany, after hearing there was money to be made, working in a variety of jobs such as a builder, barman, coal-miner and, most bizarrely, a cuckoo-clock salesman.
He went on to study English and German at UCD, before winning a scholarship to the University of Freiburg, which was regarded as the most environmentally friendly town in Germany. It was there he got hooked on Green politics, taking part in marches and rallies, mostly against the use of nuclear power.
Inspired by his time in Germany, he set up an ecology society at UCD and became one of the founding members of the Green Alliance. Outside politics, he went on to establish a language academy in Dublin, which he kept operating until he was elected to the Dáil. He is married to Penny Stuart and they have two children, Ellie (nine) and Seán (eight). They live in a modest semi-detached home in Ringsend, in Dublin 4.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS after Gormley helped establish the Green Party, he now leads the party through a daunting period.
Government has come at a price. The party has had to swallow a fistful of bitter pills, such as agreeing to hospital co-location, US warplanes landing in Shannon, corporate donations and the Tara motorway. And in his own backyard he will have the responsibility of whether to approve an incinerator in Ringsend, which is in line with present Government policy.
He also faces the task of unifing a party where large numbers appear increasingly uneasy about being in government.The impressive performance of Patrica McKenna MEP in the leadership election may be a sign of growing discontent. McKenna, who was strongly opposed to sharing power with Fianna Fáil, won 35 per cent of the vote. The proportion of Greens who voted against going into Government a month ago was just 13 per cent.
"There was an unfair perception that he was gung-ho about going into Government, but that's not the case at all," says one senior Green. "He was the guy who pulled the plug on discussions initially. He's not interested in power for the sake of it. He wants to bring about positive change. That's what he, and the rest of us, are all about."
So far, it appears, Gormley's strategy has been to launch into a blitzkrieg of activity. Rarely a day goes by without a major announcement (in the last week alone, he announced plans to reform local government, signalled a change the structure of the Seanad, met the EU to discuss Ireland's environmental performance and released 30 endangered birds of prey into the wild). And there's no sign of him stopping any time soon.
All in all, in the rough and tumble world of politics, most people agree he is the right man for the job.
"His intensity is matched by his political nous," says one admirer in the party. "Ultimately, he's measured in what he says and how he says it. Sure, it can cause anger, annoyance and irritation, but most of the time it's a major asset. It's what gets us on the Nine O'Clock News, after all."
The Gormley File
Who is he?Minister for the Environment and Local Government, and former Green Party chairman
Why is he in the news?He's been elected leader of the Green Party
Most appealing characteristic:principled, passionate
Least appealing characteristic:abrasive and single-minded
Most likely to say:"We went into Government because we urgently need to tackle climate change."
Least likely to say:"We went into Government so I could get my hands on the new 5.5-litre S-Class Mercedes."