Ireland’s parliament elected a new three-party coalition government last Saturday which has been dubbed the country’s “greenest administration ever”. The programme for government hammered out between the two historic governing parties of the centre-right, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and the Irish Green Party has been lauded by everyone from the co-president of the European Greens Philippe Lamberts to Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo. Yet if the document contains a number of important initiatives, such as bans on gas fracking and fracked imports, it is ultimately a continuity agenda – in line with the previous decade of austerity.
Indeed as the Green Party’s own finance spokesperson Neasa Hourigan warned her colleagues: "Having negotiated the details of the document and sat in rooms for hours and hours, I really believe that this might be the most fiscally conservative government in a generation." February’s election saw the party winning a record 12 seats and 7.1 percent of the vote as it surged on the back of the climate strike movement. Yet having slowly rebuilt the party in the wake of its last disastrous coalition with Fianna Fáil at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, leader Eamon Ryan has once again chosen to align his party’s fate with Ireland’s right-wing establishment.
Ireland “cannot borrow cheaply forever”
The new power-sharing arrangement between the civil war rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil is something new in Irish politics. The two right-wing parties have alternated in government since the state’s foundation in 1922, and as recently as 2007 their combined vote reached 69 percent. Yet in February’s election this was reduced to 43 percent – with the old rivals subsequently choosing to close ranks before Sinn Féin’s left populist surge.
