Cllr Chris O'Leary from Cork City resigns disillusioned from Green Party

kerrynorth wrote:

Cork City Cllr Chris O'Leary has resigned from the Green Party stating that they appear to want to stay in Government "no matter what". It was on the Radio 1 News.

http://www.politics.ie/green-party/40734-cllr-chris-oleary-resigns.html

Mary White is talking to O'Leary now on newstalk.

Auditor #9 wrote:

kerrynorth wrote:

Cork City Cllr Chris O'Leary has resigned from the Green Party stating that they appear to want to stay in Government "no matter what". It was on the Radio 1 News.

http://www.politics.ie/green-party/40734-cllr-chris-oleary-resigns.html

Mary White is talking to O'Leary now on newstalk.

Any news on this?

Bronwyn Maher is another councillor in Fingal (?) and she was just on Newstalk saying she's considering her own position.

She believes the Greens need to sit down and look carefully at what they've done and failed to do and what their potential in Govt. is now. She believes there's some complacency in the Ministerial Greens and that they are cosying upto FF too much...

Well given that they've long since alienated their natural base with the Lisbon stance, Tara, Rossport etc. it was only a matter of time before they started to drive away their own elected reps. It's only five or six more months till Gormley and Ryan have their pensions. I wonder will anything change then?

When I was in Ireland, some acquaintances had an interest in the Green Party. It struck me, then, that there was considerable difference between some of their supporters, the 'grass roots', and the people who end up as TDs. There was all sorts of mutterings about placements within the party and power bases. At the time I thought them entertainingly mad. Suffice to say there seemed to be division, but then what organisation doesn't?

To get elected as a TD from a small party needs both a favourable constituency and a certain type of character. I would imagine that you need to be fairly focused on self interest. These tendencies are not necessarily the best attributes of a leader. I have met Mr Gormley briefly on only two occasions so would be reluctant to draw any conclusions other than I wasn't impressed. To my mind Dan Boyle is probably the person who should be leader of that party.

At a very basic level have they ever considered what are the conditions that would automatically cause them to leave the government?

Dan Boyle is the chief architect of the Green/FF Alliance - the biggest sell out of the lot. He is now so unpopular in Cork that he doesn't hold surgeries at the GP offices, because local people are so angry with him. If he is made leader the party will never, ever revert to its environmental principles. He was defeated at the last election so has no democratic mandate. All he has is a Senatorship, gifted him by Ahern for services rendered in the same way E. Harris was.

Aragon I bow to your greater knowledge of the man. He struck me as a lot more capable than Mr Gormley.

As I said on pie. Chris is one of the good guys.

There comes a time when you see your party going in a direction which means you need to stand up and walk out.

What's more, the number of past Green voters who think the Greens need
to learn a lesson at the next election is growing by the day.


Re Dan Boyle. I'm not at all surprised, he may have been 20 years in the Greens but he turned yellow long ago.

Dan Boyle has been on P.ie alluding to 'personal and local' reasons for it behind the scenes rather than O'Leary's stated political ones, and some of us pulled him up for using insinuation. He then said that O'Leary and he have never got along personally, and that O'Leary had handed in a resignation note in December but had been negotiating since then (the insinuation being that O'Leary was after personal advancement in return for acquiescence). Again some of us pulled him up on this insinuation, and he started on about us not understanding the behind the scenes reality which doesn't fit in with our anti-Government agenda. Even though I had already said I couldn't care less, it seems he has everyone who has any criticism of policy or even manners in a little 'anti-Government' box. It really seems like a laager mentality...

toxic avenger wrote:

Dan Boyle has been on P.ie alluding to 'personal and local' reasons for it behind the scenes rather than O'Leary's stated political ones, and some of us pulled him up for using insinuation. He then said that O'Leary and he have never got along personally, and that O'Leary had handed in a resignation note in December but had been negotiating since then (the insinuation being that O'Leary was after personal advancement in return for acquiescence). Again some of us pulled him up on this insinuation, and he started on about us not understanding the behind the scenes reality which doesn't fit in with our anti-Government agenda. Even though I had already said I couldn't care less, it seems he has everyone who has any criticism of policy or even manners in a little 'anti-Government' box. It really seems like a laager mentality...

Crikey! I wonder why he would feel like that? Particularly on p.iechan?

Squire wrote:

At a very basic level have they ever considered what are the conditions that would automatically cause them to leave the government?

I don't think they have - I think they were in a flurry of excitement at being chosen for government that they haven't thought about this at all. Well, perhaps Dan Boyle has as he's quite smart.

I'd reckon Gormley is quite idealistic though inexperienced but a very good man all round. He got glowing reviews from one super mechanic I spoke to a few months back, the old fella who built the machine to recycle glass into gravel.

Eamonn Ryan is an interesting character - he's a good politician for the media as he is always very positive and capable or seems so and seems to genuinely know what he's doing. He has a youtube account where his public appearances get posted which is handy - if you're lazy and don't want to read then that's the medium for you.

It'd be no harm if they all did this and read out their achievements online as well while they're at it. Video making is a great way of disemminating your message so I don't know why they don't make cool and communicative videos which would speak to the Next Generation i.e. John Gormley petting his cat or Dan Boyle dancing or Dan and David Norris dancing - something eye-catching.

https://www.youtube.com/user/MinisterEamonRyan

Hmmm. There's always something else going on behind the scenes, im(cynical)o. What's been going on there locally, TA?

Betty Doran on Mullingar Town Council resigned from the Greens before Christmas saying she couldn't stand ove the budget cuts but there was a lot of other stuff going on too within the council that she had a major bee in her bonnet about.

I have a relative who stood in the last local elections for the Green Party and similarly will resign and stand as an independent.

Kate P wrote:

Hmmm. There's always something else going on behind the scenes, im(cynical)o. What's been going on there locally, TA?

I don't follow local politics in great detail so I don't know. There might well be good reasons for Senator Boyle to say what he said today, but I don't like the use of insinuation (effectively calling the chap a hypocritical liar) without explaining it, it just seems a bit cowardly. The fellow might be complete looper for all I know, but then again it could be that Boyle is just unfairly smearing an internal dissident. I don't know, and that's why I don't like the 'hit and run' used by Boyle and de Burca today.

Well it looks as though there might be a bit of a run on the Green bank.

coc wrote:

Well given that they've long since alienated their natural base with the Lisbon stance, Tara, Rossport etc. it was only a matter of time before they started to drive away their own elected reps. It's only five or six more months till Gormley and Ryan have their pensions. I wonder will anything change then?

Honestly coc, I think your interest in their pensions shows up your cynicism, not theirs.

There seem to be two Green Parties, one pragmatic and right wing and the other idealistic and left wing. Can they hold together?

cactus flower wrote:

There seem to be two Green Parties, one pragmatic and right wing and the other idealistic and left wing. Can they hold together?

The pragmatic members aren't necessarily right wing.

Dan Boyle on a P.ie thread says Chris O'Leary resigned in December. But 7 weeks of negotiations followed where they tried to keep him.

Another poster has suggested that O'Leary wanted assurances that if Boyle were to win a seat in the Euro elections, O'Leary would be co-opted to the Seanad. While another is suggesting O'Leary wanted the MEP nomination, which as someone who is anti-Lisbon, I'd imagine there would be some discomfort at.

Hopefully now he has resigned O'Leary will make his views known.

My impression is that the Greens in the Dail have no difficulty with the economic and social policies and priorities of Fianna Fail whereas many of the older grassroots members would. There is probably a new layer of voters who feel the Greens have done quite well in the Dail.

cactus flower wrote:

There is probably a new layer of voters who feel the Greens have done quite well in the Dail.

Anyone who has been out canvassing in the last 2 months have told me they got a very positive reaction.
I was surprised to hear that Chris O'Leary said the opposite.

I've heard through the grapevine that there is effectively a split among the Greens re Dan Boyle. There's a few very unhappy campers who do not like how he is representing the party. Watch for more on this......

Anyone unhappy about Gormley ?

cactus flower wrote:

Anyone unhappy about Gormley ?

I've heard people complain about JG but never DB.
I felt that those who were complaining had unrealistic expectations about what could be achieved in government.

eoinmn wrote:

Honestly coc, I think your interest in their pensions shows up your cynicism, not theirs.

That's a fair point.

Some more people need to leave the Green party. For example Patricia McKenna is a half-wit who is the reason I could never vote Green. She continues to put Irish children's lives at risk with her anti-MMR campaign. Three Irish Children have died as a result of not getting the MMR since she started sowing fear for her own selfish political reasons. She should be in jail.

If people like McKenna continue in the Green party, I believe it is time to start another Green party. Why should party containing anti-science half wits own the Green brand?