updated below
Ireland will be getting Greener, as that nation’s Green Party has agreed for the first time to join a coalition government. Fianna Fáil, the party of current premier, Bertie Ahern, has agreed to introduce a carbon tax during the lifetime of the next parliament in exchange for the Greens’ entry into the coalition, while the Greens agreed not to use their government role to block Fianna Fáil’s road-building plans or to stop Iraq-bound US military flights from using Shannon airport.
The coalition will also include the Progressive Democrats (PD). Fianna Fáil and the PD have shared power in the outgoing government, but failed to win a majority of seats in the recent parliamentary election.
As Wilf Day pointed out in the earlier planting, under Ireland’s single transferable vote (STV) system, we know the patterns of vote transfers between candidates of various parties. It just so happens that Green votes were highly unlikely to transfer to Fianna Fáil and more likely to go to the leading opposition party, Fine Gael. So, in terms of the connection between votes and executive-formation, assuming the coalition goes ahead, do we have here a systemic failure, or at least a mandate violation? The coalition agreement needs to be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Green’s national conference today (which about 500 party members are expected to attend).
It is not yet known which or how many portfolios the Greens will get, but they are seeking Transport (which would put them in charge of implementing road projects that they campaigned against!) and Environment. The Greens would like to reorganize the ministries, combining parts of Energy and Environment to address global climate-change issues.
Ahern is also working on support deals with two independent members of parliament.
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Update: The coalition is approved, with 86% of Green delegates to the conference approving, although the Greens party leader is stepping down to honor a previous pledge not to enter a coalition with Fianna Fáil. Greens will have two portfolios (probably environment and energy, rather than transportation) and the PDs one. The Irish Times has more detail on the agreement, including its policy guidelines and the information that the Greens will also have two junior ministers. Thus four of its six legislators will have government posts. Meanwhile, the article also notes that Ahern continues to offer budgetary commitments so far up to “hundreds of millions of euros” with three non-party members (with a fourth possibly also to be signed up).
There was a similar mandate violation in the first MMP election in New Zealand where New Zealand First (which had campaigned vigourously against the ruling National Party and hinted at a coalition with the Labor Party) changed course and entered a coalition with National.
At the second MMP election the party’s representation fell from 17 to 1 in a house of around 120 MPs.
Seed planted by Alan — 13 June 2007 @ 18:51
While F&V was in cyber-exile, I came across the first of the following two quotations, and recognized the name of Tony Gregory TD… I’d seen it in Michael Laver’s book Invitation to Politics, which I read circa 1983.
I remember being surprised that Laver described Gregory as an “Independent” with a “constituency” in a defined area of Dublin, since all I knew at that time was that (a) Ireland used “proportional representation” and (b) “proportional representation” = nationwide closed party lists, as in Israel. (I don’t think I realised the Australian Senate system was a boiled-down version of Israeli-style PR… mind you, in 1983, no Senate elections had yet taken place using “one in the box” above the line ticket voting.)
I couldn’t dig up the original quote from Invitation to Politics, but I did find another Laverian account of Mr Gregory’s “infamous” deal. Talk about unintended consequences… the “Celtic Tiger” was fed on pork!
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that every polity should start shovelling moneys towards electoral districts at random, in the hope this will transform it into an economic powerhouse, but this does tend to argue against the frequent criticism that PR is too localist… no, wait, maybe it’s that PR isn’t localist enough… whatever.
NB: “Gregory” = highly appropriate surname from a PR point of view http://tinyurl.com/2bn3u2 (although Ireland uses random whole-ballot transfers instead of fractional surpluses).
“… Ireland’s expertise in construction is well established; in Britain there are big contractors – such as J Murphy and Sons and Laing O’Rourke – that trace their roots to Ireland. But the origins of the new Irish property fortunes are home-grown – indeed, as so often with property, they are found at the confluence of politics and business. In fact, some people trace the boom back to a single crucial meeting in 1982, at which Charles Haughey, the populist Fianna Fáil leader, was seeking the support of Tony Gregory, a feisty independent member of the Irish Dáil, to help form a minority Government. The pair struck a deal, involving pledges on Haughey’s part to sink large amounts of money into inner-city regeneration in Gregory’s Dublin constituency. The tax breaks to persuade the private sector to invest proved successful, so the Government extended them to tourist and leisure facilities, kickstarting a whole industry.
When the economy took off in the early 1990s, those in the property and construction sectors were well placed. Increased employment and rising incomes, coupled with very low borrowing costs as Ireland prepared to join the Euro, fueled demand for housing and commercial property, pushing prices even higher. In the countryside, planning controls were minimal, encouraging a wave of small building projects, while farmers with land near big towns became instant millionaires, and family retail chains saw a sharp rise in their value with the arrival of the British multiples. But the biggest winners were the builders and developers with the foresight to acquire large land banks before prices took off in 1994…”
- John Murray Brown, “Lucre of the Irish, 142 Prospect Magazine (January 2008), http://tinyurl.com/2lk972.
Compare:
“These negotiations had resulted in the now infamous “Gregory Deal” under which Tony Gregory, a left-wing independent TD representing Dublin Central, had extracted promises of major Government expenditure on projects of interest to his constituents, in exchange for his legislative support of the Haughey administration.”
- Michael Laver and Norman Schofield, Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe(OUP, 1990), p 3.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 28 February 2008 @ 00:37
Ireland does not use nationwide closed party lists. It has a multi-member constituency-based single-transferable-vote system. Tony Gregory was, and still is, one of the deputies for the Dublin Central constituency.
Also, arguably, the Celtic Tiger began with the so-called Tallaght Strategy in September 1987, five years after the Gregory Deal. It was a very ‘unpork’ strategy.
Seed planted by Robert Elgie — 29 February 2008 @ 17:28
> “Ireland does not use nationwide closed party lists.”
As they say – “Oi knoo dat.” Didn’t know it in 1983, though – I was still in high school.
John Murray Brown is Irish correspondent for the Financial Times, so I’m assuming he has some idea. Alternative explanations I’ve heard assign causation to (a) low taxation, (b) expanded tertiary funding, and (c) Euro-subsidies, so I guess the left and right can claim the Celtic Tiger as a goal for their team.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 29 February 2008 @ 18:12