The first, and possibly self-evident insight, is that the business of government is extraordinarily complex and challenging. No amount of time spent on the Opposition Benches critiquing government policy can adequately prepare a small political party for the experience of being part of government, particularly during a period of significant flux and change. For this reason, I believe it was hugely important for a relatively young political party like the Green Party – which aspires to influence the political mainstream and to eventually transform society- to acquire essential experience in relation to governing.

There were undoubtedly many risks and pitfalls attached to the Green Party’s decision to enter into government with Fianna Fail in 2007. I believe that we had little choice but to take that decision. We were serious about the urgent need to introduce a programme of green policy- reform in this country, through the party’s fullest possible engagement in the formal political system. For the Green Party, and for most political parties, the objective of getting into government in order to be in a position to implement policies is an overriding one. After the 2007 general election, and given its outcome, no viable alternative government formations appeared possible other than one that involved the Green Party’s old political nemesis, Fianna Fail. We accepted that party’s invitation to form a government with it, although we were aware that our numbers were not critical to the government’s overall parliamentary majority.

Our decision to enter into government in 2007 was based upon the recognition that governments in parliamentary democracies play an essential role in bringing about political and social change. This does not in any way diminish the invaluable role that parties of opposition or civil society organizations also play. Their role is particularly critical in relation to the dissemination of alternative political ideas and in challenging the shortcomings of the government of the day. However, given the systems of parliamentary democracy in place in most developed countries today, and the power vested by their peoples in relevant institutions of government, it is clear that no enduring social or economic change can be brought about without engaging with those institutions both from within as well as from without. (The only other available alternative is to collapse the existing political structures and institutions, and to start afresh. This latter option is so fraught with risk and difficulty that it is usually rightfully dismissed as dangerous and unrealistic).

The wider green activist movement has been successful internationally in raising public consciousness about the green agenda and in agitating for change from outside of the political system. The Green Party on the other hand has constituted itself as a political party because it has identified a role for itself as an agent of change, operating from within the formal political system. The Green Party in Ireland has occupied an important role as a party of political opposition for a period of approximately 25 years. More recently it has availed of the opportunity to become a party of government. The two- and- a- half turbulent years that the party has spent in government to date have proven, in my opinion, that the experience of opposition is a ‘walk in the park’ compared to the serious business of governing.

Even during the best of political times, the need to survive in a tough, competitive, adversarial political system, to deal with increasingly commercially-driven and intrusive media operating on the basis of instant, twenty-four hour reporting, and to handle the many competing demands of vocal, professionally organized and well-funded interest groups makes the business of governing extremely challenging. But throw into the mix a global economic recession, the exposure of serious scandals in our domestic banking system, a growing threat of national bankruptcy, the collapse of a bubble in our property sector, high levels of personal indebtedness and negative equity amongst the public, worrying levels of unemployment and the need for the government to significantly reduce levels of public expenditure through a series of very tough budgets, and one has a potent mix indeed. The Green Party had to contend with this unfortunate mix of political circumstances since becoming a party of government for the first time in 2007.

Does this article represent an apologia for the Green Party in government? Is it an attempt to excuse the party for the many mistakes it has undoubtedly made since it signed up to the joint Programme for Government with Fianna Fail in June 2007? No it is not. But it is an attempt to put the performance of the Green Party in government in context before any attempt is made to critique it.

I believe it is important to acknowledge the key achievements of the Green Party during its period in office to date. One of its most significant achievements, in my opinion, was the introduction of a carbon tax in this year’s budget, (albeit at a lower than desired rate of 15 euros per tonne). The willingness of our government partners to accept the introduction of this new tax was linked in no small part to a more general collapse in government revenues, and the need to identify alternative forms of taxation. It would also appear that, assuming our government partners are to be believed, they are ready to support my party in the introduction of climate change legislation which will set annual and legally-binding emissions-reduction targets for this country. The Green Party has also been responsible for the introduction of the new Building Regulations which make the achievement of much greater levels of energy efficiency in all new buildings mandatory.

My party has also overseen the introduction of a number of home insulation grants schemes for retrofitting old buildings. It has significantly increased investment in badly-needed water infrastructure. It has been responsible for significant investment in the areas of ocean, wave and wind energy and has accelerated the process of upgrading the national electricity grid. It has supported and encouraged this country’s main electricity provider – the ESB- to significantly ‘green’ its practices and to commit the company to ambitious targets for generating electricity from renewable energy sources. The party has also been responsible for the introduction – in the face of significant resistance from Fianna Fail – of the Civil Partnership Bill which goes a long way in addressing a serious area of discrimination experienced by the gay community.

While acknowledging the creditable achievements of the Green Party in government however, I must also be honest in identifying its weaknesses and the missed opportunities for which it has been responsible. I would attribute many of the mistakes made by the party to political inexperience and to the very difficult circumstances in which it has had to govern. I have to admit that in my opinion – and particularly in our second year of government – weak leadership, an attachment to political office and a morbid fear of provoking an election has effectively paralysed our parliamentary party. Our government partners took full advantage of this situation and have managed to get us to support decisions which I believe we should never have supported, and which possibly have inflicted irrevocable damage on our green political ‘brand’.

Indeed in my opinion, there is a significant gap in the market for a good political handbook for small (and indeed larger) parties dealing with the question of how to best survive a coalition government with a dominant and more experienced partner. While many people warned at an early stage that Fianna Fail would devour the Green Party, I think there was too much optimism and even naivety on our part that we would be up to the challenge. We talked a lot about the need to maintain our own separate identity in government, but had few concrete strategies for achieving this objective. We also failed to anticipate the many tactics that would be employed by our very experienced and hardened government partners to push us into supporting their agenda. We failed to strategize as to how we would respond to those tactics, or ensure that we weren’t manipulated by them.

Of course it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to identify the mistakes that we made at key junctures since getting into government. I think it would be useful however to look back and to try to identify those mistakes, in the interests of attempting to improve the party’s performance in government from this point onwards. If I revert to the very earliest stages of the Green Party’s engagement with this administration, I believe some errors were made in the negotiation of the original Programme for Government. It was a significant coup for the party to negotiate two senior and extremely relevant Ministerial portfolios of Environment & Local Government, and Energy and Communications. However, I believe our failure to negotiate successfully in relation to even one of our ‘flagship’ issues (Shannon stopovers, Tara, Corrib etc) meant that we began our period in government with an unfortunate public perception that we were willing to trade key policy concessions for ‘high office’.

It was always the case that it was going to be difficult for the Green Party to manage public expectations concerning what we could achieve in government, particularly when we were not essential to the government’s overall majority. We faced an even greater challenge in managing the surprise and disappointment of many of our long-term green supporters as they watched the party quickly transform itself from a ‘right-on’, firebrand, protest-party, to a more moderate, pragmatic establishment party. That said, I think that rank-and-file Green Party members have generally surprised the media and the public over time in relation to their willingness to support the Green Party leadership. They have shown themselves willing to follow the direction given by the parliamentary party where key decisions of government had to be made, even if those decisions appeared to be at variance with traditional green party policy.

As far as the priorities of the Parliamentary Party, and in particular the Green Ministers, were concerned, it appeared to me that from early on considerable emphasis was placed on convincing the electorate and the media that we were capable of shedding our “radical” and “extremist” image and conducting ourselves as sensible politicians, capable of working co-operatively with our government partners. Indeed in the early days of government this was an important and legitimate objective, as many voters appeared to expect us to be fractious, unrealistic and difficult to work with. However, after our first full year in government I believe we had shown our ability to knuckle down, to co-operate and to make compromises where necessary.

In my opinion, it was at the end of our first year in government when the Lehman Brothers collapsed, the global economic recession kicked in, our domestic banking and property crises began, and the Green Party moved into a position where it held the balance of power in government, that we should have “upped our game”. It was at that point that we needed to change the way that we engaged with our government partners in order to extract more policy concessions from them. Unfortunately we appeared to continue to prioritize the maintenance of positive and non-conflictual relationships with our government partners above all else. In my opinion our Ministers tended to be quite conflict-averse and to avoid using the new leverage we now had in government for fear that it would rupture what had by now become pleasant and harmonious working relationships.

It was at this point also that the Green Party – as part of government- began to get involved in the development of policy responses to what might be called the ‘legacy’ issues of previous Fianna Fail-dominated administrations. Without going into too much detail on any of these issues, it was my experience that the Green Party lacked the necessary resources and probably the experience to keep fully on top of complex policy responses to the crises that had emerged in our banking and property sectors. I believe that in relation to key measures that we supported in government – such as the Bank Guarantee Scheme, NAMA and even the last two Budgets- the Green Party was only allowed by our government partners to have a rather limited impact in relation to the substance of these important policy responses.

As a result, in my opinion, the party has found itself supporting legislation that conflicts with its fundamental principles, particularly in relation to NAMA. Despite the extensive policy work that the Green Party has carried out in the area of land valuation, it supported the very flawed concept of ‘long-term economic value’ which formed part of the NAMA package. This concept clearly represented wishful thinking on the part of the government rather than being based on a sound economic analysis, given the uncertainty that surrounds the prospect of a global or domestic economic recovery in the short-to-medium term. Furthermore, given its strong track record on tackling planning corruption at local government level in the past, the Green Party has failed to date to ensure that proper safeguards are put in place with regard to the future functioning of NAMA. The party has failed so far to ensure that NAMA lands will be subject to proper planning and development, and protected from the kind of corrupt practices that have blighted the planning system in Ireland over the past decades.

As far as other key policy responses of government were concerned, I believe that the secrecy that surrounded the drawing up of the Bank Guarantee Scheme was not helpful to the Green Party. It meant that we were bounced into, for example, agreeing to allow the guarantee to cover Anglo Irish Bank on the grounds that it was ‘systemically important’ to the Irish banking system. I personally regret having voted in favour of a Bank Guarantee Scheme that covered Anglo Irish Bank. If I knew then what I know now about the Irish banking system, I would never have voted to support its inclusion in the Guarantee Scheme. The government from which I recently resigned will soon vote to support a significant recapitalization of the Anglo Irish Bank. Given the broader social and economic context in which Irish people are losing their jobs, and having their homes repossessed due to inability to repay their mortgages, the recapitalization of Anglo Irish Bank will be a bitter bill indeed for the electorate to swallow.

There are many other issues and policy decisions which I could highlight that I believe reflected the failure of the Green Party to properly assert its position in government. The willingness of the party to agree to allow the first, important stage of the Banking Inquiry to be held in private is in conflict with our original public call for a fully open and public inquiry. The exclusion of the establishment of the Bank Guarantee Scheme from the official remit of the banking inquiry was also a regrettable concession to the Fianna Fail party as far as I am concerned.

In my experience, the Green Party has been prevented by Fianna Fail from having a meaningful contribution to the last two budgets. In fact we were bounced into many of the extremely unpopular measures contained within the disastrous Budget introduced at the end of 2008. This badly- planned budget saw the automatic entitlement to a medical card being removed from the over 70’s, amongst other measures. My recollection of the processes surrounding the negotiation of the Emergency Budget that quickly followed in early 2009, and the more recent Budget of December 2009, was that our government partners steamrolled us into accepting the measures within those budgets without taking on board much of the input that we attempted to make to them. Our willingness to go along with the original reversal of the cuts to the salaries of higher-level civil servants in the most recent budget clearly conflicted with our repeated public commitments to ensuring that the better-off in society bore their fair share of the burden of any necessary corrections to the government’s public expenditure bill.

There have been many other policy areas in which the Green Party has allowed Fianna Fail to outwit and out-manoeuvre it, with the original vote of confidence in Minister Willie o Dea being the most recent. We supported enshrining the crime of blasphemy into the new Defamation legislation with Fianna Fail’s encouragement, even though we are a socially liberal party. We failed to protect the Equality infrastructure in this country from the swingeing cuts imposed by the Dept of Justice, despite our best efforts. Our attempts to influence the new Immigration, Residency and Protection Bill were largely rejected by Minister Dermot Ahern, which caused great annoyance in the party. The issue of Seanad Reform is one where- given strong Fianna Fail resistance to any serious programme of reform – John Gormley is now going to settle for a widening of the university franchise (something which does not affect most Fianna Fail senators) and possibly minor changes in relation to the numbers on some of the vocational panels.

The reform of local government is also an area in which the Fianna Fail party is strongly resisting Green Party policy initiatives. Despite John Gormley’s promises to transform local government – which is badly needed- there is already a revolt among Fianna fail backbenchers and threats to refuse to support the proposed legislation unless all of the offending elements are removed from it. The Civil Partnership Bill was another case in point, Under the original Programme for Government, both parties signed up to the introduction of the legislation. The target date for its introduction was within the first year of being in office. Instead, conservative Fianna Fail members opposed it – despite the party having signed up to it – and delayed its potential passage for well over a year.

As I am now in a position to properly reflect on the Green Party’s two- and- a- half years in government with Fianna Fail, what is clear to me is that the balance between what the party is achieving policy-wise in government and what it has had to swallow from Fianna Fail has become much too skewed in the direction of Fianna Fail’s agenda. I do not believe it is in the Green Party’s interest to continue in government unless we can assert ourselves and our agenda to a much greater extent. Our achievements in government must be weighed up against the many ‘hits’ that we have taken and the general damage that has been done to the Green Party ‘brand’.

It is hard to define exactly what that brand represents but it has been critical in attracting public support for the party, and in increasing our representation at the levels of local and national government. The brand reflects the integrity that the public have associated with the Green Party in the past and the perception that we have the ‘courage of our convictions’. It reflects the popular perception that we are not wedded to power and office like other more mainstream parties, that we are free of corporate influence and that we genuinely have the good of the community and the environment at the heart of our policies.

Unfortunately, every day that we remain in government with Fianna Fail and find ourselves being outwitted and manipulated by that party, the more the green brand is being damaged. This is an issue for the wider party membership and in particular, for those who intend to run as green party candidates in the future. If we continue to allow ourselves to be seen as desperate to stay in government regardless of what we have to support, the party will have to spend an awfully long time in the political wilderness before the public starts voting in numbers for green party candidates again. In conclusion, unless there is a fundamental transformation in the way that the Green Party is engaging in government, it is my considered opinion that it should pull of government sooner rather than later.

——————————————————————————–

Quote:
Originally Posted by Parton
De Burca has thrown her rattler out of the pram…boo hoo the muinteoir couldnt get the plum EU post…and why should she?

No wonder journalists in Ireland have become lazy when readers are not interested in looking beyond the spin put out by the PR consultants and communications gurus employed by the government parties.

De Burca explained that she had been having ideological differences with her party leadership for some time. Her assertion is backed up by

a) the email which is the subject of this thread, showing her concerns about NAMA and raising with Gormley the question of the obvious conflict of interest in his support for a 30% NAMA haircut while at the same time failing to produce the 2008 accounts of the DDDA which would have shown that a 70% haircut was more realistic;

b) the fact that she was challenging her own party leader to appear before the Seanad to answer questions about the DDDA in November 2009
Order of Business: 3 Nov 2009: Seanad debates (KildareStreet.com)

c) independent corroboration from a Labour senator that she absented herself from all 18 NAMA votes (see entry for Sunday 14/02)
Dominic Hannigan’s blog

According to de Burca, she discussed her disillusionment with John Gormley and the proposed way forward was that she could continue to contribute to development of Green policy in Europe where 50-80% of our legislation originates.

For whatever reason, Gormley failed to deliver what he had promised. What would you have had de Burca do ?

i) accept the €120,000 p.a. consolation job offered in Luxembourg?

ii) continue to accept her €67,000 p.a. salary to sit quietly in the Seanad and pass legislation she disagreed with ?

iii) resign from the Green party but continue to sit in the Seanad (as a Taoiseach’s nominee) opposing the government?

iv) resign her Seanad position?

It is certainly clear to me which is the more honourable course of action.

Isn’t it just possible that when John Gormley made public the information about his failure to deliver the EU Commission job, he could have been attempting to divert attention from the true reasons for her resignation?

He still hasn’t clarified why he stated so categorically that de Burca NEVER raised the issue of the DDDA with him when it is clear that she was on his case about it between August and November last year. Perhaps, like Willie O’Dea, he just forgot.

The ironic thing about this resignation is that it was indirectly triggered by the actions of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the new Irish Commissioner, who in 1993 was herself found guilty by the Irish High Court of misusing her powers and operating what was in essence a private, parallel justice system in which members of parliament were able to get punishments imposed by the courts altered or set aside. One of the examples raised in court concerned an assault on a fisheries officer.

So what is the link between Trevor Sargent’s resignation and Maire Geoghegan-Quinn?
The answer is a sorry tale of tit-for-tat.

On 12th February, a Green Party senator (Deirdre de Burca) in the Irish government resigned. She claimed that her party had negotiated a position in the new Irish Commissioner’s cabinet as a condition of Green Party support for the nomination of Maire Geoghegan-Quinn and that their coalition partner (Fianna Fail) had reneged on the deal.

De Burca accused her party leader of spineless capitulation to Fianna Fail.

5 days later, on 17th February, the Green party were bounced at short notice into a vote of confidence in a Fianna Fail government minister who had lied in a court affidavit. The media came out in droves to say that de Burca had been right and that the Greens, who espouse “clean politics”, were spineless. The following day, the Irish Green parliamentary party demanded that said minister resign which he duly did.

The general consensus of opinion in the Irish media is that leaking the Trevor Sargent story was Fianna Fail’s revenge for the loss of their minister.

So the Irish government is now 2 ministers down because of Maire Geoghegan Quinn’s refusal to appoint a Green to her cabinet (that it was her decision was confirmed by the Irish prime minister yesterday). Where will this sorry tale end ?

• http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0215/breaking43.html

• http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/colum-kenny/colum-kenny-it-just-may-be-too-late-for-the-redfaced-greens-2072822.html

• http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0224/breaking36.htm

• http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0215/breaking45.html

• http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1117/1224258981922.html

• http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0223/sargentt.html

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has confirmed to the Dáil that he had spoken to Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn about the possibility of employing then senator Déirdre de Búrca in her Cabinet.

He also said the commissioner said she would not be employing Ms de Búrca after the Commission’s acceptance by the European parliament.

Ms de Búrca resigned her position as senator and her membership of the Green Party when she was turned down for a position in Ms Geoghegan-Quinn’s cabinet, claiming Fianna Fáil was “running rings” around the party.

She claimed she had been assured that she would get the job, and that the Greens had supported Ms Geoghegan-Quinn’s nomination as commissioner on that basis.

“I indicated there was an interest from Senator de Búrca,” Mr Cowen told Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore during leader’s questions in the Dáil.

“The commissioner, the nominee, was prepared to have a look at that and see if it that would be possible but not on the basis of any condition, precedent having been set on her part.

“She had yet to go to the parliament and her independence had to be accepted and was accepted and respected. The issue of the composition of her cabinet could only arise upon her being approved by the parliament.”

Mr Gilmore asked: “When did Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn tell you she wouldn’t be employing Senator de Búrca?”
Mr Cowen responded: “That would have arisen, at a date which I can’t be clear about, after her acceptance by the parliament for the position.”

De Burca has released a copy of an e mail (see below) that she claims she sent to Minister Gormley and Party Chairman Dan Boyle in August 2009 outlining a range of public concerns about the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

“This e mail was sent to John Gormley’s private e mail address to ensure that it received his immediate and personal attention” says de Burca. “I had a brief verbal discussion with him about the issue and he encouraged me to send the e mail to his private e mail address. I had several further discussions with the Minister about the DDDA issue over subsequent months”.

De Burca says that she feels it is important to correct the “inaccurate” public claims that are being made about her representations to Minister Gormley about the DDDA.

ENDS
For further information

Please contact Deirdre de Burca on mobile 086 8061450
or email at deburcaoffice@yahoo.ie.

COPY OF EMAIL SENT BY FORMER SENATOR DEIRDRE DE BURCA TO MINISTER JOHN GORMLEY IN AUGUST 2009

To: senatordanboyle@hotmail.com
CC: johnjgormley@gmail.com
Subject: Fw: I believe that these are valid questions and deserve public discussion and definite answers.
From: deirdre.deburca@oireachtas.ie
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:57:45 +0100

Dan and John,
As well as the many other e mails I have received pleading with me not to support NAMA, I also received the one below. It is particularly relevant to John and his Dept.

Regards
Deirdre

Subject: RE: I believe that these are valid questions and deserve public discussion and definite answers.

“Current market price” is the nub of the question. Who sets this and what method do they use to set the valuation? Re the “who”, government, banks, developers and auctioneers all have a vested interest.

The key issue here from the economy’s perspective is to pay a fair price as otherwise we take on more debt than is needed which will divert resources from the productive part of the economy.

An example to put John Gormley on the spot relates to the DDDA (Dublin Docklands Development Authority) which falls within his ministerial remit.

Why has the DDDA been unable to publish its 2008 accounts yet?

In February 2009: DDDA promised the Oireachtas Committee on Environment it would publish the 2008 annual accounts by the end of June “at the latest”.
In August 2009: DDDA now says the 2008 Accounts “won’t be published until the autumn” of 2009. Coincidentally, NAMA and the Lisbon treaty will be done by then.

Why has the DDDA been unable to set a value on its Irish Glass Bottle site investment?

(The DDDA formed 26% of a consortium (Becbay) which bought the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend in 2007 for €412 million. Another partner in the consortium (Davy stockbroker’s private client investment) has already written down the valuation of this site to 60%. The loan to Becbay (from Anglo and AIB) was €293 million.)

Davy’s valued the site at €164 million in 2008.

What value would the DDDA’s books show for the investment at end of 2008?

How will NAMA (with a 30% haircut) value the site today?
at €287 million (70% of purchase price)
at €205 million (70% of outstanding loan)
at 70% of some arbitrary future valuation which assumes that the Environmental Protection Agency (also John’s responsibility) gives the site a clean bill of health, that the DDDA (also John’s responsibility) grants planning permission, that development of the site takes place and that the property constructed there actually sells.

It will be difficult to explain to the taxpayer why they have paid way in excess of the December 2008 valuation to buy up this toxic asset should the DDDA accounts be published before the NAMA valuation.

It will be interesting to see if the DDDA accounts are published after the NAMA valuation whether the NAMA 2009 valuation will be retrospectively applied to the 2008 accounts or whether a “true” 2008 valuation will be shown.

The ACC-triggered High Court examinership of Liam Carroll’s Zoe Group is also very helpful in giving a specific example to discuss. In Monday’s Irish Times, John McManus reported the following:

Applying for court protection Zoe said that if the group of six companies, which have total debts of €1.2 billion, was liquidated, they would have a deficit of €900 million. Based on this writedown value, properties on which it has borrowed €1.1 billion from eight banks would fetch €275 million if they went on sale this morning.
That means a 75 per cent writedown for the banks.

So how can the government justify valuing these properties at €737 million (one third discount relative to €1.1 billion)

I would dearly love to see Mr Gormley’s answers to these questions !

Maurice

What evidence does NAMA have that the current market price of property, land etc is in fact the incorrect price to pay?
What evidence does NAMA have that the current market price of these is not in fact going to decline for a number of years, as would be the case if Ireland were to follow the common experience of previous property crashes?
Why would a temporary nationalisation of the banks be a bad thing, given that this would provide the taxpayer with a valuable asset which could be sold in future years?
Why does no independent analyst support the governments view on NAMA? This includes the Swedish finance minister who ran their bad bank system, who said to the Irish Times that he “favours the more severe mark-to-market write-down of assets rather than a ‘through the cycle’ valuation.”, and that “it (NAMA) does not sound like the right solution to buy assets from private banks.” It also includes the IMF who said ” Insolvent institutions (with insufficient cash flows) should be closed, merged, or temporarily placed in public ownership until private sector solutions can be developed … there have been numerous instances (for example, Japan, Sweden and the United States),
where a period of public ownership has been used to cleanse balance sheets and pave the way to sales back to the private sector”, in the context of saying that the likely losses for Irish banks were such as to render them insolvent.
Why not force the equity and bond holders in Irish banks to take the first place in the queue to absorb the losses that the banks would have to book were current market prices to be paid for the loans made. After all, that’s what risk capital is for?
If the state overpays for the loans relative to current market prices, what, apart from a functioning banking system, does the taxpayer gain?
What percentage of book value of the loans should NAMA pay, given that current market prices for land and development properties are somewhere around 30% or less of book value?
If NAMA were to pay say €60b for loans that are worth only €30b, how can this transfer of a full years tax revenue to private speculators be justified in this economic time?
If, as is entirely possible, the loans transferred to NAMA do not provide sufficient income to meet the coupon payments of the bonds issues by NAMA, will the taxpayer, at least in the short term, not have to meet these payments?

Senator Deirdre de Búrca

Green Party/Comhaontas Glas

Spokesperson on European Affairs, Health & Children, Defence and the Gaeltacht

www.senatordeirdredeburca.blogspot.com

M: 086 8061450

T: +353 1 6183513

E: deirdredeburca@oireachtas.ie

W: www.deirdredeburca.ie

T: www.twitter.com/deirdredeburca

F: http://tinyurl.com/cqbo2w

Former Green Party Senator Deirdre de Burca has rejected the claim being made by Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, that she had never raised the issue of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority with him, or his Department prior to her recent resignation.

De Burca has released a copy of an e mail (see below) that she claims she sent to Minister Gormley and Party Chairman Dan Boyle in August 2008 outlining a range of public concerns about the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

“This e mail was sent to John Gormley’s private e mail address to ensure that it received his immediate and personal attention” says de Burca. “I had a brief verbal discussion with him about the issue and he encouraged me to send the e mail to his private e mail address. I had several further discussions with the Minister about the DDDA issue over subsequent months”.

De Burca says that she feels it is important to correct the “inaccurate” public claims that are being made about her representations to Minister Gormley about the DDDA.

ENDS
For further information

please contact Deirdre de Burca on mobile 086 8061450
or email at deburcaoffice@yahoo.ie.

COPY OF EMAIL SENT BY FORMER SENATOR DEIRDRE DE BURCA TO MINISTER JOHN GORMLEY IN AUGUST 2008

To: senatordanboyle@hotmail.com
CC: johnjgormley@gmail.com
Subject: Fw: I believe that these are valid questions and deserve public discussion and definite answers.
From: deirdre.deburca@oireachtas.ie
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:57:45 +0100

Dan and John,
As well as the many other e mails I have received pleading with me not to support NAMA, I also received the one below. It is particularly relevant to John and his Dept.

Regards
Deirdre

Subject: RE: I believe that these are valid questions and deserve public discussion and definite answers.

“Current market price” is the nub of the question. Who sets this and what method do they use to set the valuation? Re the “who”, government, banks, developers and auctioneers all have a vested interest.

The key issue here from the economy’s perspective is to pay a fair price as otherwise we take on more debt than is needed which will divert resources from the productive part of the economy.

An example to put John Gormley on the spot relates to the DDDA (Dublin Docklands Development Authority) which falls within his ministerial remit.

Why has the DDDA been unable to publish its 2008 accounts yet?

In February 2009: DDDA promised the Oireachtas Committee on Environment it would publish the 2008 annual accounts by the end of June “at the latest”.
In August 2009: DDDA now says the 2008 Accounts “won’t be published until the autumn” of 2009. Coincidentally, NAMA and the Lisbon treaty will be done by then.

Why has the DDDA been unable to set a value on its Irish Glass Bottle site investment?

(The DDDA formed 26% of a consortium (Becbay) which bought the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend in 2007 for €412 million. Another partner in the consortium (Davy stockbroker’s private client investment) has already written down the valuation of this site to 60%. The loan to Becbay (from Anglo and AIB) was €293 million.)

Davy’s valued the site at €164 million in 2008.

What value would the DDDA’s books show for the investment at end of 2008?

How will NAMA (with a 30% haircut) value the site today?
at €287 million (70% of purchase price)
at €205 million (70% of outstanding loan)
at 70% of some arbitrary future valuation which assumes that the Environmental Protection Agency (also John’s responsibility) gives the site a clean bill of health, that the DDDA (also John’s responsibility) grants planning permission, that development of the site takes place and that the property constructed there actually sells.

It will be difficult to explain to the taxpayer why they have paid way in excess of the December 2008 valuation to buy up this toxic asset should the DDDA accounts be published before the NAMA valuation.

It will be interesting to see if the DDDA accounts are published after the NAMA valuation whether the NAMA 2009 valuation will be retrospectively applied to the 2008 accounts or whether a “true” 2008 valuation will be shown.

The ACC-triggered High Court examinership of Liam Carroll’s Zoe Group is also very helpful in giving a specific example to discuss. In Monday’s Irish Times, John McManus reported the following:

Applying for court protection Zoe said that if the group of six companies, which have total debts of €1.2 billion, was liquidated, they would have a deficit of €900 million. Based on this writedown value, properties on which it has borrowed €1.1 billion from eight banks would fetch €275 million if they went on sale this morning.
That means a 75 per cent writedown for the banks.

So how can the government justify valuing these properties at €737 million (one third discount relative to €1.1 billion)

I would dearly love to see Mr Gormley’s answers to these questions !

Maurice

What evidence does NAMA have that the current market price of property, land etc is in fact the incorrect price to pay?
What evidence does NAMA have that the current market price of these is not in fact going to decline for a number of years, as would be the case if Ireland were to follow the common experience of previous property crashes?
Why would a temporary nationalisation of the banks be a bad thing, given that this would provide the taxpayer with a valuable asset which could be sold in future years?
Why does no independent analyst support the governments view on NAMA? This includes the Swedish finance minister who ran their bad bank system, who said to the Irish Times that he “favours the more severe mark-to-market write-down of assets rather than a ‘through the cycle’ valuation.”, and that “it (NAMA) does not sound like the right solution to buy assets from private banks.” It also includes the IMF who said ” Insolvent institutions (with insufficient cash flows) should be closed, merged, or temporarily placed in public ownership until private sector solutions can be developed … there have been numerous instances (for example, Japan, Sweden and the United States),
where a period of public ownership has been used to cleanse balance sheets and pave the way to sales back to the private sector”, in the context of saying that the likely losses for Irish banks were such as to render them insolvent.
Why not force the equity and bond holders in Irish banks to take the first place in the queue to absorb the losses that the banks would have to book were current market prices to be paid for the loans made. After all, that’s what risk capital is for?
If the state overpays for the loans relative to current market prices, what, apart from a functioning banking system, does the taxpayer gain?
What percentage of book value of the loans should NAMA pay, given that current market prices for land and development properties are somewhere around 30% or less of book value?
If NAMA were to pay say €60b for loans that are worth only €30b, how can this transfer of a full years tax revenue to private speculators be justified in this economic time?
If, as is entirely possible, the loans transferred to NAMA do not provide sufficient income to meet the coupon payments of the bonds issues by NAMA, will the taxpayer, at least in the short term, not have to meet these payments?

Senator Deirdre de Búrca

Green Party/Comhaontas Glas

Spokesperson on European Affairs, Health & Children, Defence and the Gaeltacht

www.senatordeirdredeburca.blogspot.com

M: 086 8061450

T: +353 1 6183513

E: deirdredeburca@oireachtas.ie

W: www.deirdredeburca.ie

T: www.twitter.com/deirdredeburca

F: http://tinyurl.com/cqbo2w

Threats to the Green Party

Firstly it has been suggested that I made threats about “damaging’ the Green Party. I think most people who are familiar with my political record will acknowledge that I have always tried to act in the best interests of the party. In fact, even though I have resigned from the Parliamentary Party (and not the party itself) I am still deeply concerned about the party’s future. Before I resigned however I was very clear with my colleagues that I believed my resignation could be damaging for the party. This was a statement of fact, not a threat, and the events that have occurred since have proven the accuracy of my predictions. Unfortunately I do not believe that I had any alternative but to resign given the circumstances.

Disappointment over the Brussels job

It has also been said that my resignation was motivated by a failure to get a job in Brussels . I openly admit that the failure of my party leader to insist that our government partners honour a clear agreement they had entered into with him about a position in Brussels was the trigger for my resignation but it most certainly was not the cause. The focus on the Brussels job distracts from significant events within the parliamentary party which reflected my growing concern at the kind of decisions that we were continuing to support in government, and the treatment that we appeared willing to put up with from our government partners in order to stay in government.

These events came to a head in July 2009 when I absented myself from a vote on an opposition amendment to the Defamation Bill which attempted to delete the crime of blasphemy from the bill. When the government lost the first vote I was summoned to the Seanad Chamber and told to vote with the government in a walk-through vote. I was sharply chastised at a subsequent Green Parliamentary Party meeting and was told that if I failed to support the government in a vote again that I would lose the party whip. I was also put under strong pressure to support the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill. Eventually Senator Dan Boyle and I failed to support the government on the final votes on that bill. This was because we were deeply unhappy with the way in which the Minister for Justice had dealt with the Green Party’s input to the legislation. When the Seanad returned after the summer break, I spoke with John Gormley as Party leader, and explained to him how uncomfortable I was at having to support certain upcoming government decisions. I told him that I was considering leaving the parliamentary party. From that point on he was very aware of my position regarding remaining in government.

Green Party lobbying of Brian Cowen for Brussels job

The third inaccurate claim that has been made publicly about my resignation is that my party had agreed only to lobby on my behalf with Brian Cowen in relation to a position in Maire Geoghegan Quinn’s new cabinet. In fact, John Gormley told me clearly that he had negotiated a position for a Green in her new cabinet as a basic condition of Green Party support for her nomination. The Green Party had favoured Pat Cox for the position of Commissioner, and. the two Green Ministers actively lobbied Brian Cowen to have him nominated for the post. However, Fianna Fail was insistent that one of their own be nominated, and favoured Maire Geoghegan Quinn. The Green Party eventually agreed to support her nomination subject to the condition that there be a position for a Green in her cabinet. I queried John Gormley at the time as to whether this was not a decision that the new Commissioner Designate herself would have to make. John told me that Brian Cowen had telephoned Maire Geoghegan Quinn last November and made her aware of this condition before she was officially nominated. I asked how she had reacted to the news and he told me that she had agreed because she was very interested in the nomination. This occurred last November and while there were obvious sensitivities about discussing the matter publicly before the Commissioner was appointed, there was no uncertainty about it. Any suggestion therefore that my party had merely agreed to lobby Brian Cowen for me in relation to the position is very misleading.

Research portfolio unsuitable for a Green

The subsequent news that the Research and Innovation portfolio had been assigned to the Irish Commissioner was very welcome to me. This portfolio area will be critical in assisting the European Union to achieve its most important strategic objective of becoming an internationally-competitive, low-carbon economy based on innovation in many new areas of green enterprise and technology. The broad scope of the research portfolio includes health, agriculture, energy, environment, sustainable development, transport and industrial technologies. A Green presence in that cabinet would have a valuable contribution to make to the work of the DG.  John Gormley’s early insistence on having a Green in the cabinet seemed a very sensible one. However, the Sunday Business Post recently (14/2/10) described the Commissioner’s cabinet as a “praetorian guard…….expected to be completely loyal to their principal…….inevitably de Burca would have been seen as an outsider”. Perhaps a form of political tribalism is a more accurate explanation for the failure of our government partners to honour the agreement that was made with John Gormley last November than any concerns about the “technical ability” of the green candidate for the position. It is indicative of the weakness of the Green Party’s position in government at present that, given the opportunity to influence the momentum in the EU towards a greener low-carbon European economy, my party allowed itself to be “shafted” (to quote John Gormley). It indicates a particular attitude towards green policies that became very familiar in dealing with our government partners in Leinster House. I regret that John Gormley seems willing to allow the party to be so regularly outmanouevred in this way in the interests of remaining in government, rather than asserting the interests of the Green Party and its constituency.

My motivations

Finally I would like to address the issue of my motivation in resigning from the Green Parliamentary Party and Seanad Eireann. The past few weeks leading up to my resignation were very extremely difficult ones for me. Three weeks ago a Senior Minister (who is not a Green Party member) stopped me on the corridors of Government Buildings and informed me that the position in Maire Geoghegan Quinn’s cabinet, popularly understood be held for me based on the agreement with my party leader, had been offered to another individual. This was the first indication I had that the position was not going to be offered to me. I immediately spoke to John Gormley but it took a further week to confirm that the agreement had been breached by our government partners. I encouraged him to insist on the agreement being honoured but he told me that he was powerless to do so. He told me that our government partners were willing to offer me a position as Chef de Cabinet in the European Court of Auditors. I turned the position down on the basis that I do not believe I have the necessary skills or experience to carry out the important work of ensuring that the EU Budget is correctly implemented. I was offered this position on several occasions. I made it clear to the Green Party and Fianna Fail that I was not looking for a ‘plum’ and well-paid job in Brussels but rather that I genuinely want to make a serious contribution to ensuring that the European Union leads the way internationally towards a more sustainable and responsible way of living on the planet.

I resigned from the Green Parliamentary Party without any clear plans about my future. I do not regret the decision, although I am obviously concerned about what lies ahead. I hope my resignation will cause the Green Party Parliamentary Party members to seriously rethink their role in government. If they do not, I believe they risk consigning the Green Party in Ireland to political oblivion for the foreseeable future. This would be a very real tragedy and I sincerely hope that it does not happen.

In resigning from the party and publicly criticising its performance in government, I am aware that personal and professional relationships I enjoyed with committed people who work within the party may be irrevocably damaged.

My actions have brought about a sudden end to my career as a public representative and have set me apart from the political family I have belonged to over the past 14 years. I have no clear map for my future. I feel disoriented and uncertain.

I am satisfied, however, that I made the right decision. I could not have continued in my role as a member of this current Government. This has become increasingly apparent to me over the past number of months.

Most Green Party members, including myself, were aware of the original challenges facing us when we decided to enter into government with Fianna Fáil. We were a small party with lots of idealism, very relevant policies but no experience of government.

Fianna Fáil, on the other hand, was a party with plenty of experience of government and a well-deserved reputation for pragmatism and populism. We had little idea at that early stage of the other serious difficulties we would face in government.

These difficulties included, among others, a global economic recession, the exposure of serious scandals in our domestic banking system, the growing threat of national bankruptcy, the collapse of our property bubble, high levels of personal indebtedness and negative equity amongst the public, worrying levels of unemployment and the need to significantly reduce levels of public expenditure through a series of very tough budgets.

The significant challenge for the Green Party during its first period in government was to impress upon the public that while we were not involved in creating these problems, our presence in government would make a difference to how they were resolved. Given our small size and limited resources as a party, this was always going to be a tough call.

It was particularly tough in the early stages of government because Green Party support was not essential to the Government’s majority. However, over time, our support has become essential to that majority.

Unfortunately, I believe we have not used that influence in the way we might have. In my opinion, our influence on critically important matters such as the details of the Bank Guarantee Scheme, the Nama package, budgetary policy and the banking inquiry has been much more limited than it should have been.

I have observed the frustration of my colleague, Senator Dan Boyle, who spends a considerable amount of time trying to provide valuable input into financial legislation but often with limited impact.

I have seen my colleague Ciaran Cuffe struggle to make changes to justice and equality legislation with little success.

I have witnessed the significant delays in the introduction of the civil partnership legislation which had a clear timetable for implementation as set out in the original programme for government.

I have noted our Government partner’s successful stalling on Green initiatives in the area of political reform, including Seanad and local government reform.

I have seen the challenges that John Gormley has faced in having his department’s waste policy supported by the wider Government.

While there is little that is surprising about the fact the larger party in government tries to have its own way on many issues, the apparent reluctance by the Green Party to challenge Fianna Fáil in relation to these issues has become a growing source of concern to me.

It appears to me that the consensual collegiate style favoured by the two Green Party Ministers proves very ineffectual in the face of determined manoeuvring by our government partners.

This pattern has become more pronounced since the local and European elections last year when Green Party candidates (including myself) were badly trounced.

Unfortunately, the results of those elections has meant that local authorities across the country have been left without the energetic and principled presence of Green Party councillors in areas such as planning, waste, water and housing, while Green Party representatives in Leinster House have become much more cautious about the possibility of pre-empting a general election.

While this caution is very understandable, I believe it is not in the wider interests of the party at this point in time.

In my resignation letter to my party leader, John Gormley, I described this extreme political caution being displayed by the party as a form of “paralysis”.

I stand over this description because despite the regular pressure that has been applied to him at parliamentary party meetings in relation to the need to challenge Fianna Fáil over various policy issues – particularly over the past few months – he has not done so.

In fact, matters have become more serious of late where Brian Cowen appears to have failed to honour two specific agreements that were made at the highest level (ie between the party leaders), which I do not feel at liberty to disclose here.

When I challenged my leader John Gormley about one of these agreements last week, he informed me that I had been “shafted” by Fianna Fáil.

This was the point at which I knew that it was time for me to resign from the parliamentary party and from the Government.

It seems to me that if the Green Party is now allowing itself to be treated with total contempt by our larger government partners, then matters are only likely to get worse in the foreseeable future.

It is a matter of real sadness to me that my involvement in the parliamentary party has ended in this way. I have always put a high premium on loyalty to my party and I hope this was evident in my conduct in the public domain.

I believe the Green Party is an absolutely essential part of the political spectrum in Ireland. I hope that it continues to grow and to exert a strong influence on public policy.

If I try to reflect on what has just happened to me, I hope I will be able to look back in the future and see my resignation as an important part of the learning that the Green Party had to undergo in government.

I want to see my party being effective and courageous in government. In my books, that means being able to exercise good political judgment, and to know when it’s time to say “enough”.

If my resignation achieves that, then it will have been worth it.

It is with great sadness that I tender my resignation, having served as an elected member of the Green Party for eight years on Wicklow County Council and for a further two and a half years as a member of Seanad Eireann. During that time I have worked faithfully on behalf of the party to try to advance its political agenda in order to put this country on a more sustainable path.

I regret to say that I can no longer support the Green Party in government, as I believe that we have gradually abandoned our political values and our integrity and in many respects have become no more than an extension of the Fianna Fail party. I have had a number of conversations with you as Party Leader over many months now about my growing discomfort with the decisions that the Green Party has been supporting in government. You have been very aware of my frustration with the fact that despite the Green Party holding the balance of power in this government for some time now, our willingness to try to exercise that influence appears to grow less with every passing week.

As a party, we seem to have been paralysed by the electorate’s rejection of many of our candidates (including myself) in the local and European elections last June. Any suggestion that we challenge Fianna Fail, or face it down over important issues, seems to bring up a great fear in us that we will have to leave government. In fact staying in government appears to have become an end in itself now for the Green Party. While I was always aware that our political inexperience as a party would leave us vulnerable to being manipulated by Fianna Fail in government, what I hadn’t predicted was the strong attachment to office that appears to have developed since we became part of government.

It is with regret also that I must also inform you that I have lost confidence in you as Party Leader. The Parliamentary Party has had almost daily meetings now since well before Christmas at which we have discussed the very real problems we are experiencing in getting Fianna Fail to co-operate with us in implementing policy initiatives that were agreed as part of the original, and the revised Programme for Government. From stonewalling us and trying to unravel key aspects of our policy initiatives being implemented, to ignoring our input into the preparation of new legislation, to reneging on two key agreements made between Party Leaders, the Fianna Fail Party continues to ‘run rings’ around us and to take advantage of our inexperience and our very obvious fear of facing the electorate.

Despite the fact that you have been asked on many occasions over the past few months by the Parliamentary Party to take a stronger line with Brian Cowen and the Fianna Fail party in relation to certain core issues, you have clearly been unable, or unwilling to do so. Unfortunately the effect of this unwillingness to act is that the Green Party has been slowly haemhorraging support because of a growing public perception that we have lost the courage of our convictions and have become no more than an obedient ‘add-on’ to Fianna Fail. For example, I am aware that you as Minister have a key report in front of you from Dr Niamh Brennan on the issue of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. I’m afraid I lack the confidence that the findings of this report will be acted on in the timely and appropriate manner that the public interest requires.

I believe that in your role as Party Leader you have done a disservice to the Green Party and to its members in allowing this ‘drift’ to occur. It would appear that holding onto office and to seats have become more important to the party than holding on to its fundamental political purpose. We have lost our way as a party and I am sad to say that it has reached a point where I, and most of the people I know, will be unable to vote Green in the next election.

I don’t take this decision to tender my resignation lightly. I am very clear however that I do not want to be part of what the Green Party is continuing to support in Government.
Yours sincerely

The decision by the incoming Spanish Presidency to prioritise the implementation of the EU Citizen’s Initiative which is outlined to in the Lisbon Treaty is very welcome. This initiative is an ambitious one. The EU is a trans-national democracy consisting of 27 Member States with differing political cultures. The effective implementation of the initiative could contribute over time to a necessary enrichment of the concept of EU Citizenship. It also has the potential to play an important part in addressing the ‘legitimacy’ problems faced by the EU. These problems stem to a large extent from a common perception amongst EU citizens that there is an entrenched democratic deficit at the heart of the way in which the Union functions as a political system.

The successful implementation of this citizen’s initiative, however, cannot be taken for granted. I will begin my submission by outlining some general proposals concerning the possible implementation of the initiative. Were the Commission to adopt these proposals, I believe that the possibility that the EU Citizen’s Initiative would realise its potential as an important instrument to strengthen the ‘democratic fabric’ of the Union could be greatly increased.

Submission proposals

My proposals concerning the Citizen’s Initiative are as follows:  

(i) EU Citizenship Unit

A special unit on EU Citizenship should be established within the Commission over the next year or two. Responsibility for most aspects of the operation of the Citizen’s Initiative should rest with this unit.

(ii) Information and public awareness campaign

The operation of the EU Citizen’s Initiative has little hope of success unless its launch coincides with a properly planned and resourced information /public awareness campaign about the initiative aimed at citizens across all Member States. This public awareness campaign should be managed by the Commission.

( iii )Engagement of national governments and parliaments

The governments and national parliaments of the Member States have a critical role to play in ensuring the effective implementation of the EU Citizen’s Initiative. The cautious response to date of some of my own fellow national parliamentarians to the proposed implementation of this initiative suggests that there is a need for the Commission to act in order to engage national governments and parliaments with the Citizen’s Initiative, and to encourage their co-operation with its effective implementation. This could involve prioritising discussions on the Citizen’s Initiative at both the level of the European Council and at relevant Council of Ministers’ meetings. Furthermore, a formal commitment could be sought from Heads of State, Prime Ministers and relevant government ministers that adequate resources will be made available by Member States to enable, for example, acceptable national verification procedures to be established for citizen’s signatures that are collected as part of the initiative.

(iv) EU Citizen’s Initiative Task Force

While the timeframe that has been given to the Commission for advancing proposals concerning the EU Citizen’s Initiative is relatively brief, it is important that sufficient time and attention are given to some of the problems/challenges that might arise in relation to its implementation. It would seem sensible for the Commission to form an EU Citizen’s Initiative Task Force or Working Group, to tease out the many practical issues, and even ‘unintended consequences’ that may arise as a result of the implementation of the initiative. This group could include Commission officials, representatives of civil society, national and European parliamentarians, experts from jurisdictions where citizen’s petitions/initiatives are in operation, and internet/social media experts. This group could ‘stress test’ the likely operation of the initiative and ensure that most possible scenarios have been anticipated, and planned for. This should help to avoid any serious problems when the initiative is eventually launched.

(v) EU Citizen’s Initiative website

Citizen’s expectations with regard to this new initiative will need to be carefully managed. This can only be done by providing them with full information and explanation about the use of petitions/citizen’s initiatives in other jurisdictions, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of these initiatives, the parameters within which an EU Citizen’s initiative can be framed, the issue of the admissibility of citizen’s initiatives and the role that the Commission, Council of Ministers and EU Parliament will play in the eventual adoption of the requested legislation. In fact, this will provide a very useful opportunity to educate citizens about the respective roles of the various EU institutions and the competences given to them across different policy areas by the EU treaties etc. This will require a well-designed website to be developed which is dedicated to the EU Citizen’s Initiative and that will provide all of the necessary information for those interested in participating in an initiative. Innovative approaches could be used to communicate some of this information and to avoid a ‘text-overload’ on the website.

(vi) Use of the internet and online communication

Considerable awareness now exists of the skilful way in which US President Barack Obama used the internet and online communication to engage a significant section of the vast US electorate in his presidential campaign. The same potential exists in relation to the use of the internet and online communication to engage EU citizens with the EU Citizen’s Initiative process. This potential should be fully exploited in the way that the initiative is rolled out across the Union.

Green Paper on the EU Citizen’s Initiative – Answering the Commission’s  questions

1. Minimum number of Member States from which citizens should come

I believe the option of one third of Member States is a sensible one. It avoids the otherwise likely scenario where citizen’s initiatives would be launched by a bloc or “geographical subsystem” of Member States (ie the Central and Eastern European Member States, the Northern European States, the Southern European States etc). The citizen’s initiatives launched by these blocs could be seen as advancing their own particular interests rather than those of the Union as a whole. The requirement that citizens from at least a third of Member States participate in an EU Citizen’s Initiative makes this less likely in my opinion.

1. Minimum number of signatures per Member State

I consider that 0.2% of the total population of each Member State is an appropriate threshold, is sufficiently low not to discourage citizens from organising themselves and yet is high enough to represent an acceptable percentage at a European level.

3.  Eligibility to support a Citizen’s Initiative – minimum age

I believe that the launch of the EU Citizen’s Initiative offers a unique opportunity to try to engage more young people in European politics and in an emerging European public space. For that reason, although I do recognise the convenience of limiting participation in the initiative to those who are of voting age for the European Parliament elections in each Member State, I believe that the age at which citizens should be entitled to take part should be set at 16 years.(In the interests of reassuring those who might be concerned about the possibly disproportionate impact of non-voting 16 year old citizens on legislative proposals emerging from the EU Commission, it might be possible to specify that the signatures of 16 and 17year olds should not amount to more than a given percentage of signatures gathered within any Member State).It is important to point out that under my proposal, 16 and 17 year olds would not be given the right to vote for elected representatives, but rather to try to exercise an (albeit) limited influence on the legislative agenda of the Union within the parameters set down by the Treaties. I do understand that the governments of many Member States may be unwilling to support this as it may create pressure to introduce something similar at a domestic level. However, on the other hand it would indicate that the new and evolving political system that is the EU is offering innovative forms of political engagement to young people who cannot access such opportunities under most of the more traditional national political systems.

1. Form and wording of a Citizen’s Initiative

I believe an initiative should require that the subject matter and objectives of the proposal on which the Commission is invited to act should be clearly stated. I don’t believe that citizens should be obliged to state these using legal terminology or phrasing. This can be done at a later stage by the Commission once the initiative has been deemed to be valid.

1. Requirement for the collection, verification and authentication of signatures

The eventual success or otherwise of the European Citizen’s Initiative will largely stand or fall on the effectiveness and transparency of the collection, verification and authentication of signatures. I wish to make a few short points in this regard. Firstly I believe that full harmonisation of procedural requirements at EU level would not be practical. However I believe that Member States must solemnly commit to putting in place effective and transparent collection verification and authentication procedures and that these should be subject to regular audit by an independent body. Citizen should be able to support a Citizen’s Initiative online. However, security and authentication features should be built in to the process, whether this involves the use of social security numbers, passport numbers and other personal identification markers. The process should not be so easy to complete that it encourages those who have little interest in the content of the initiative to add their signature mischievously or fraudulently. Given the geographical size (and growing) of the European Union, it is inevitable that online debate and communication will form an important element of any European public space. The operation of the EU Citizen’s Initiative should recognise this fact.

1. Time limit for collection of signatures

I believe that a time limit of one year for the collection of signatures is acceptable.

1. Registration of proposed initiatives

I believe the mandatory registration of proposed initiatives is necessary. This could be done through a specific website provided by the Commission. I also agree with others who have suggested that the admissibility of the proposed initiative should be established at an early stage before the time-consuming process of collecting signatures is entered into. I also believe that the Commission’s responses to the proposed initiatives should be made available on the website. Complete transparency will be very important with regard to the citizen’s initiative process and others wishing to participate in such initiatives may learn from the experiences of others through access the information on the website. In the event that a citizen’s initiative results in the successful adoption of the legislation requested, this could be recorded on the website. Successful participants could be interviewed on video and share their experience with other interested parties.

1. Requirements for organisers – transparency and funding

I believe that organisers should be required to provide information on the support and funding they have for an initiative. I believe that in the case of any Citizen’s Initiative that is submitted, there should be a named sponsoring organisation or individual who can liaise with the Commission regarding any aspect of the initiative. I believe there should also be full transparency requirements around any funding connected with the initiative and the campaign surrounding it. It is not clear whether this could be done at a national level with the appropriate bodies or whether it would need to occur at an EU level.

1. Examination of Citizen’s Initiatives by the Commission

I believe a clear timeline should be set for each stage of the Citizen’s Initiative process, outlining maximum time periods within which certain actions had to occur. The process should not be open-ended or at the discretion of the Commission or any of the other EU institutions. There should be clarity and certainty for participating citizens about what they can expect to happen and within what time- frame.

1. Initiatives on the same issue.

I believe it is appropriate to introduce rules to prevent the successive presentation of Citizen’s Initiatives in relation to a particular issue, as long as the issue is very particular and well-defined. There is a danger that in relation to a wide-ranging policy area such as Climate Change, it would be unreasonable to exclude legislative proposals that sought to tackle the problem but using very different means or legislative approaches. Therefore I think the rules draw up in this area need to be  qualified somewhat as a rigid interpretation might exclude very worthy and legitimate legislative proposals.

The citizens’ initiative is a very important development and those of us who encouraged a “Yes” vote to the Lisbon treaty pushed it to reassure many people who feel the European Union does not listen to them and that they cannot influence its decision making or policy agenda. We made a case that the citizens’ initiative will be an important mechanism to help them have their voice heard and try to influence policies emerging from Europe. I am delighted to see the quick movement on this; the Lisbon treaty was ratified recently and already we see early movement on rolling out the citizens’ initiative.

It was mentioned that perhaps we should stop focusing on what national governments will do and focus on other matters. However, national governments and parliamentarians will play a very important role in selling this because, as Deputy O’Rourke stated, citizens will not instantly be out celebrating this on the streets. They will have to be persuaded. We are all in the business of persuading them because it is in all of our interest to try to ensure that citizens feel more engaged with the European Union and with the decisions being made at European level that affect our day to day lives.

I understand why people feel cautious. Some people here are concerned that perhaps it will lead to unrealistic expectations. Expectations will have to be managed but we must start by approaching this with a degree of enthusiasm and seeing its potential. We are very good at speaking about the need to innovate and be creative. In this instance, it will be quite a challenge to come up with a mechanism that will work in 27 member states, engage citizens, use electronic media and try to engage younger people. It will not be agreed overnight but how we approach it and a degree of enthusiasm on the part of the people to whom most citizens listen, namely their national parliamentarians, will be important.

I hope we will all approach this by considering how we can make it work. Already, organised civil society throughout the European Union tries to influence policy. Those groups which are already quite well-organised will be delighted with this. The challenge for us is to try to involve other citizens who up to now have not really been that engaged with debates at European level. We need to be as positive as we can be.

Electronic media will have an important role. Barack Obama’s campaign has been mentioned. He tapped into the potential to communicate with voters individually and personally. It seems to me that the success of his campaign across the huge continent of the United States offers us hope that this initiative can be successful and can reach people. It will not be straightforward, however. We will have to examine some of the problems mentioned by other speakers. It is possible that people will get roped in to signing up electronically to an initiative without having any understanding of what it is about.

I am strongly in favour of allowing people aged 16 and over to participate in the citizens’ initiative. Young people are falling away from formal politics. The citizens’ initiative does not offer 16 year olds the right to vote, as to do so would interfere in the sovereign matters of individual member states. However, it encourages them to get interested in policy debates that are taking place at EU level and to lend their support to new policy initiatives that are emerging. I hope we can continue to put pressure on the Commission to consider including those aged 16 and over in anything that is agreed under the citizens’ initiative.

I am delighted that European Movement Ireland is as positive as it is about this initiative. I hope we can all be part of trying to make it work and rolling it out across the Union over the coming year or so.