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The Green Party has chosen the Fels Point Hotel - official home to the Rose of Tralee Festival - for its ‘think-in’ this week, where plans to expand its representation in Kerry in next year’s local elections will be announced.

Some 14 months into coalition government, the Green Party is effectively welded to Fianna Fáil through its cabinet ministers resolve to ‘green’ government policy over their five years in office.

However, the wider membership’s commitment to coalition may be sorely tested over the next 12 months when painful public spending priorities are announced.

Tensions emerged last week over the government’s plan to merge equality and human rights agencies, with Green TD Ciarán Cuffe making public his opposition.
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The Greens will have no guest speakers at their Tralee ‘think-in’, but the party has invited up to 30 sitting councillors and local election candidates to the event.

Sunday Business Post

So they'll announce the running candidates for next year's local elections in the mid-west then?

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SPARE a thought for the Greens re-using soggy hotel towels today because ordering fresh ones would burden the planet with further phosphates.

The party fled the Big Smoke and urban grime in order to get back in touch with their roots at a think-in in Tralee.

Far from the madding crowd, the irksome row over a motorway through the Hill of Tara, and a decent distance from the weeping sore of Haulbowline, they convened in controversy-free Co Kerry.

Of course, they all took the train down, rather than add so much as a Volkswagen Beetle's phut-phut footprint to the world's woes. Or so we were reliably informed. Not a single member flew to Farranfore, although plenty of the press pack did.

One train took the leadership, and later ones the lesser lights like Niall O'Brolchain, the Great West Hope, who bombed at the general election, and Deirdre De Burca, who hopes not to do likewise come the Euro Election -- although her current status of total unknown perhaps ought to see her dubbed Deirdre The Burqa.
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Independent

Independent!?!?!

Do we expect any surprises coming out of this? Somehow I doubt it.

Surely they should have worked out where the majority of attendees are residing and then establish which location would ensure the least travelling.

johnfás wrote:

Surely they should have worked out where the majority of attendees are residing and then establish which location would ensure the least travelling.

That would be Dublin probably. I would have thought somewhere you were targeting to make a gain would be on the criteria?

I always thought these things were an excuse for a weekend away.

Ah but excuses for weekends away are excuses for environmental instability. If they hosted it at Eamon Ryan's house most could cycle and those that couldn't could take the Luas. It would be far more sustainable!

johnfás wrote:

Ah but excuses for weekends away are excuses for environmental instability. If they hosted it at Eamon Ryan's house most could cycle and those that couldn't could take the Luas. It would be far more sustainable!

I don't know why they don't all just move into Leinster house, sell their own (except one) and reduce travel and living emissions that way. They could do a teleconferencing event once every six months in environmentally sensitive areas of the country like Kerry in order to try to get some more converts into the hive.

When they lose the next election they could all move into Dan Boyle's house in Cork or Gormley's house in Dublin - John might have a big one. Or Trevor Sargent's - hasn't he a garden they could all eat out of his backgarden.

I don't know why they don't do this - if they were serious about saving the world they would. One Prius between the seven of them would be plenty.

Precisely!

They could join Cowen who I believe lives in an apartment in the Merrion. I just heard that from somebody though so I don't know if it is true or not.

Perhaps he has moved into the place at Farmleigh by now?

johnfás wrote:

Precisely!

They could join Cowen who I believe lives in an apartment in the Merrion. I just heard that from somebody though so I don't know if it is true or not.

Perhaps he has moved into the place at Farmleigh by now?

Bertie was a guiding light in all this by living in a bedsit first. He was a man ahead of his time. They shouldn't even need kitchens in their new homes, these so-called greens, just use the local veggie restaurant like Bertie used the local public house. That way it fosters a sort of communal living which will be unavoidable in Dublin in 2026 when the population will be 9 million, sustained by water from Scotland and Iceland.

Bertie must have learned a lot from watching his sci-fi videos in his bedsit when he had some spare time after counting Micheál Wall's money.