Election Online – The Opposition

The Greens are a modern party and a very recent success story, having won 5 seats in the last General election. To that end, one would expect them to be quite vigorous in cyberspace, and they are.

John Gormley ( http://www.johngormley.com/wp/category/blog/) is one of the founding fathers of the Greens, and is sitting TD for Dublin-South East. As such, environmental issues crop up on his blog more often than most, with the Ringsend incinerator and water flouridation under discussion lately. Here’s John’s view on the Greens’ chances:

Like all of the party leaders, Trevor Sargeant has taken a rain-check on the blog medium, being content with a page on the main Green Party site. His biography is accessible here http://www.greenparty.ie/en/trevor_sargent .

The Greens are not known for having All-Ireland policies, so the following footage was an eye-opener for me:

The Greens are very much a Dublin-based party, all of their sitting TDs having been elected within the Pale, bar Dan Boyle. Ironic enough that an environmental party’s power base is located within the urban heartland. It remains a challenge for them to expand their borders into Ruffian Country, if they wish to partake of government.

One gets a flavour of their collective mindset on Eamonn Ryan’s site http://eamonryan.wordpress.com/. You know you’re entering Dortland when a TD uses any excuse to drop being a UCD alumnus into the text. After all. the UN and the Belfield campus are very similar, both having a ‘u’ in their names.

Aside from the odd Ross O’Carroll-Kelly style gaffe, Ryan gives the impression of a smooth operator. Ryan seems to have hob-nobbed in many worldwide climatic conferences, the main subject of this one being one in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ciarán Cuffe is the most web-savvy Green TD going, if one to judge by his site. The Dublin South TD has blitzed www.youtube.com to post videos on a variety of issues, including transport matters, the future of the Public Baths in Dún Laoghaire, and the Green Party Convention. Click here http://www.youtube.com/CiaranCuffe to access his gallery.

Cuffe has a self-deprecating sense of humour that is often lacking in Dáil Éireann, especially with the Mad Mullah around. Pick of the bunch has to be his encounter with a Dublin ‘Character’, who told him :”The Green Party- ah, yiz are all lentils and smoking dope, sure you’d ruin the country.”

Cuffe’s blog is accessible here http://www.cuffestreet.blogspot.com/. He also has a website, i.e. http://www.ciarancuffe.com/ .

Dan Boyle is the only non-Dublin TD in the Green Party, and wouldn’t you know he’d be a boyo from Cork. You know the Corkonians have it bad when they elect a Green to emulate dem hoors from Dublin.

Dan’s homepage and blog are located here http://www.danboyle.ie/index.php?pageID=1 .