Interdependence

Here is a link to the video of my speech to the Green Party special election convention and the text is set out below.

Ireland January 2016

Take a walk around Ireland on January 16th 2016. In Golden Island in Athlone they’re still pumping water from people’s homes.The coffin of Longford man John Clarke, was brought to his final resting place in a boat. The N18 near Coole Park is still impassable and the new motorway to replace it is going to have to be redesigned and put up on stilts because the engineers forgot to reckon on climate change.

The insurers are saying they can’t insure because we’re not talking about the risk of flooding any more, we’re talking about certainty. No one weather event can be used to illustrate climate change but a pattern can. The insurers can see it. Increasingly the people can see it. It’s a shame the Government can’t.

We had the extreme embarrassment of sitting in Paris as the centenary of the birth of our nation loomed, listening to the Taoiseach trying to wriggle out of firm commitments to the world wide effort to tackle climate change.

The status quo is all the current government is selling but the status quo is over.

We need The Green Party like never before.

Sticking to the status Quo

If the question in this election is about where we go from here, then the answer from Fine Gael and Labour is to keep things pretty much the same. They are promising to secure the recovery by sticking to the current path but their approach is in fact the more risky one. They are ignoring the fact that we must learn lessons from the past and keep adapting to what is going on in the world today, if we are truly secure our future.

You would think that the Labour Party would be ready for a change. Back in 2010 they took the enticing political option of pretending there were easy solutions to dealing with the budget and banking bubbles that had built up in the previous decade. It was never going to be easy for them to do an about turn but they made it worse by using what freedom they had to agree budget decisions that taxed the rich less than the poor.

Fine Gael have a similar credibility problem because they were all talk before the last election about the need for reform and a democratic revolution when In reality there instinct was to be much more conservative. When the vista opened up of having the same dominant position that Fianna Fail had over the previous seventy years, they couldn’t resist the temptation of seeing the state once again as their own.

People were not blind to the fact that they have been appointing two of their own people for every one Labour pick. They have seen political reform as a numbers game. Cutting local government just to save money rather than changing the way politics works. Further centralising power whenever they could. Replacing the Dev portraits with Michael Collins in jodhpurs, while telling the Garda commissioner to take a jump, when the whole Alan Shatter thing got out of hand.

Both Parties seem to think that adhering to the economic orthodoxy that held sway for the last thirty five years is still the only way to go. They seem blind to the fact that the international financial crash in 2008 changed everything. It exposed the innate instability in the current model.

The world never stays the same and the belief that the markets always know best, that less Government is always better, and that the financial system knows best, is no longer credible.

If we want to secure the recovery then we should be recognising the flaws in the current system and start doing things differently.

Thomas Picketty is correct. The massive slice of the pie taken by the top one percent has to be shared out in a different way. Our European Green colleagues are also right to demand Corporate tax justice. The loss of one trillion in taxes in Europe each year from unscrupulous corporate tax avoidance must end. We need to be on the right side of the changes that are now taking place in the EU and OECD, rather than sticking to business as usual.

Ignoring the lessons from our past

Rather than changing our ways what we are seeing is a return to the same politics that got us into our problems in the first place. Are we really going to buy into the false promise that we can both cut taxes and also provide ever better services, into the future, year after year.. We signed up to new European fiscal rules that will not allow us play that game and this great January election giveaway ignores the fact that the global economy is still very much on the edge.

Who knows where the oil price is going next or what the collapse in prices is going to bring? What certainty is there that Mr Dragi’s printing presses are going to keep going full tilt? What happens if the Chinese Government cannot keep their own credit bubbles from popping? Every party political broadcast you hear over the next six weeks should be ended with those familiar lines at the end of the lending adverts: ‘This shower are regulated by the European Central bank, your investment can go down as well as up etc’.

You would think some caution was called for after what we have just been through. But not a bit of it. We are back in McCreevey territory, if we have it we spend it. If we don't, we won't.

That is not a long term economic plan.

Risking our Future

Whatever about ignoring the lessons from the past, by ignoring climate change and the environmental challenges we face, what they are doing is risking our very future.

By their actions over the last five years they have shown they have no regard for the need to live in a more sustainable way. They don’t seem to realise that there are no jobs on a dead planet. You cannot farm a flooded field. The economy is a subset of our ecology and not the other way around. Looking after nature goes hand in hand with looking after each other.

Thank God the world seems to be waking up to that reality and is starting to react. We have known what we need to do since the UN conference on the Human environment held in Stockholm in 1972 and the publication of the Bruntland sustainable development report in 1987. It has taken us almost thirty years to come around to agreeing what to do about it. That moment has finally arrived.

We have just seen two historic agreements that can change the way everything works. In New York In September the world agreed to 17 sustainable development goals that apply to the global north as well as the south. It is a manifesto for the future, not just about the environment but about eradicating poverty, and providing health, education and justice for all.

That agreement was followed by a historic climate agreement in Paris. Some will rightly argue that it does not go far enough but what it does provide is a detailed legal agreement where every country commits to avert runaway and dangerous climate change. It will establish a transparent assessment of how each country is performing and require us to ramp up our ambition in a way that can no longer be ignored.

But after the historic highs the real hard work is now. Who do you trust to deliver on the headline agreement? We have work to do, bringing other parties together, working in new coalitions to make the Paris deal a living and breathing reality.

So we can all go on living and breathing.
For that is the scale of the task at hand.

The end of the fossil fuel era

This is the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. It will be replaced by a new energy system based around the development of renewable power and efficiency in every sector of a new circular economy.

The environmental movement has changed tack and recognised that there is a new way of helping to make the transition happen. Rather than putting all the emphasis on individual actions we are seeing the start of a divestment movement which recognises that we need to tackle the source of the problem.

We go into this year ready to go on the campaigning as well as election trail. We need to keep four fifths of the known fossil fuel reserves underground. That means we have to stop burning peat and coal. That also requires us to rule out any fracking for gas. If we are to be serious and play our role in the divestment movement we will also have to shelve any new licences to explore for oil and gas in Irish waters. We want to know in this election campaign what each party thinks of such a divestment strategy. Are they for real on climate or will they just pay lip service to the changes we now know we have to make.

The reason why we can make such a move is that the alternative, renewable system is now becoming mainstream and is a better option. The price of renewable power continues to fall and the level of investment still continues to rise, despite the record low oil prices. The financial community is starting to wake up to this reality. People are starting to sell their oil and gas shares because there is too much risk. I think we are going to turn off the oil tap by keeping prices low rather than by putting them through the roof. That means it will not be economic to extract all the shale and offshore deposits. If we at the same time regulate coal out of the market and wind down our use of gas as the alternative renewable power supplies come on line we can have this problem solved.


If we miss out on this energy revolution we will also miss out on the digital revolution that is only starting to take hold. The two go together in driving a new industrial revolution that will provide real economy wide productivity growth. New jobs are going to go to those countries that lead the way. If we opt out we will be left behind. There is a real risk of that now if we continue with the same old thinking in Government buildings. The Government are looking out from behind the net curtains, fearful of the changes that are taking place in the rest of the world.

Implementing the New York and Paris deals are our one great hope of being able to live in a more peaceful world. No one is going to hold another country to ransom over solar or wind power. The great advantage about renewable power is that it exists everywhere in one form or another. We have seen the consequences of recent resource wars in the Middle East.

The oil fields of Syria are burning. Children are literally washing up on our shores.

We cannot bomb our way to greater security over pipe lines and oil wells but we can work in collaboration to develop everyone’s own local power supply. That is what the Paris deal sets out to do. It was the most effective reply to the terrorist attacks that struck a month earlier. International consensus was the very last thing the terrorists want and should be our first line of defence against their madness.

Acting now also gives us the one chance of averting the inevitable mass migration and conflicts that will come if we don’t stabilise our climate and protect the natural systems on which we all depend. If we fail to act the consequences for Ireland may not be immediate but could we live with ourselves if we decided not to play our part. I don’t believe that the Irish people would want such a future, no matter how isolated and

Think ahead, act now

The transition to this new economic model has not been easy because there are a lot of vested interests in protecting the status quo. It is also hard for both those on the left and right to buy into the new alternative because there is a vital role for both the state and private enterprise, which one side or the other dislikes. Make no doubt about it we Greens are often business people but we also see there has to be a role for public servants and having a regulatory system that reminds property and business that it has its responsibilities as well as its rights.

The decentralised and distributed nature of this economic model is ripe for the development of new co-operative enterprises. They were there at birth of the first industrial revolution and at the foundation of our State but have since lost out. It is time for us to dust down Horace Plunkett and return to some of his wisdom and strength that came out of our own earlier co-operative history.

What it will also require is as Richard Douthwaite recognised is a massive new investment programme so that we have better buildings, communications, transport and energy infrastructure. What we build today is going to be in place for decades to come so we have to make sure we design everything with this sustainable future in mind. That is why our slogan is Think ahead, act now.

Our political system is poor at thinking of the long term but what we have to do now if we are to build things right. To get it right we need to reverse the short sighted decision of Alan Kelly to lower our planning and building standards. Is it too much to ask that as a mark of our republican birthday that we insure every single person has the right to a decent home. James Connolly must be spinning in his grave.



What we have to do.

The first job of any Government is to ensure that our most fundamental needs are met. You start by making sure there is proper shelter and a warm home for everyone. There is political consensus that we need to provide more housing to cater for our growing population, to attract home our emigrants and to provide for the new people coming to our country. The question is where do we build? At the moment we have no national spatial plan. If we get into Government that has to be the first item on the agenda.

The Green Party believes that our focus should be on bringing people back towards the centre of our villages, towns and cities. It will be a more social and efficient country when we can walk or cycle to our local school, workplace or public house. We make that case not to widen any perceived urban rural divide but simply to recognise that we cannot keep going with either urban sprawl, or with a countryside where so many houses do not light up at night.

The truth is that the rural communities and farming and forestry in particular are going to be centre stage in this transition. Not just meeting our basic need for healthy food but also in managing our land so we adapt to the climate change that is already inevitable. We will have to recognise and pay for some land areas where natural services such as flood protection and biodiversity are the first priority. In other areas we will be growing wood to provide heat for our industries and our homes. In better land we will have to switch to food production which minimises emissions and maximises the price for the farmer and not just the food processor. This is not impossible but it will take some time. The latest research from Teagasc shows that environmental sustainability and agricultural productivity goes together. It is about using less expensive inputs and using the latest technology and automation so we manage things better and monitor what is going on.

The biggest obstacle to making the switch is a social one. We are so obsessed to owning and holding onto whatever land we have that we make it difficult for a new generation to come forward and do things in different ways. It is not just about allowing the young son or daughter to inherit the land earlier. We also need to devise a system where other young people, with no direct connection to the title can get secure access and the necessary capital to innovate and sell to a local market.

We need to kickstart the co-operative movement to help make this happen. We need new ways of selling and distributing food to our own people. Why would we not build the likes of the English market in Cork or the Milk market in Limerick in every community? Why not adopt the sort of Community Supported Agriculture schemes that are growing all over the world? Do that and we can then sell our surplus produce to the rest of the world under a true origin green brand.


Fossil free by 2050

Because changing the way we use our land takes time we are going to need the transition in energy to be completed by the middle of this century. That is not a hardship, it is an opportunity to provide massive employment and economic advantage for our people.

It starts by making our homes more comfortable and less expensive to run. We started this work in Government but it is now time to ramp it up on a massive scale. We need to deep retrofit every home, using standardised systems to wrap the building up, put solar panels on the roof and change the heating system all in one go. It will require innovative financing mechanisms to make that happen but such models are starting to appear in the rest of Europe and America and can be applied here.

We need creative enterprises to work out which technologies are going to win out in the switch away from fossil fuels but one thing appears increasingly clear, the future is going to be electric. In how we heat our homes, run our cars and power our industry.

We are blessed with some of the most abundant renewable power supplies in the world. We are also a base for most of the leading technology companies who increasingly realise that their software is going to play a vital role in the management of this new variable power supply.

We want the next Government to make Ireland a test bed location for the integration of these two industries. Getting it right will be increasingly about how you encourage the right sort of behavioural change. Not by shaming people or introducing punitive fines but by working out how it can be used to create real value for people in their everyday lives. The job of politics is to help people do the right thing for the planet without having to be a daily moral choice.

Making that happen will require the right ethical rule based system where people trust in the sharing of the data so that we can provide services to them in a really efficient way. Those rules have to be centred around the interests of the citizen first, rather than any Government or Corporation. Just as the enlightenment created the cultural conditions to nurture the first industrial revolution, we need a new political and cultural enlightenment to suit this evolutionary leap the world has to make.

We can fill that space. We don’t do corruption, we don’t take brown envelopes unlike certain Councillors you all know. As Vaclav Havel recognised in his comments about the European greens, our stance is non-ideological and our advocacy is non-violent. We can think globally and act locally. We promote an economic model that respects the rule of law and measures success in the improvement to quality of life not just material economic growth. We are comfortable with transparency in all Government business and the sharing of public information in a way that the internet can now allow.

We don’t think TTIP does it. We want fair trade not trade fares. We are not against globalisation, we just think it has to be done in a way that works for everyone and not just the lucky few. The next Government will have to sign off on those new rules, Fine Gael and Labour should open the books and tell us what has been agreed so far. We have to ask the question, why is everything being done behind closed doors?

Transport for the future

One of the best ways we can balance our variable power supply will come with the arrival of electric vehicles as the new standard fleet model. They are going to win because they are better cars, with lower fuel and maintenance costs. At the same time we are going to have to reduce our dependency on the car no matter how clean its power supply. Unless we build a proper public transport alternative then our cities are going to choke and our economy with it.

This is one of the big social as well as environmental issues of our time. Because the Government shelved the big public transport options it is going to take decades before we build the new rail alternative. What we need to do in the interim is invest in the more flexible and local cycling, bus and pedestrian alternatives. We want to start by instigating a new safe routes to school programme, allied to a revision to entry rules for schools so that people from the local neighbourhood are not excluded due to the absence of the right baptismal cert.

Giving our young people back freedom to safely get to and from School on their own energy, will keeps them fit and connects them in a better way with the world. If we are going to bring people back into our urban centres and create that local environment which works for everyone then we need to provide a massive programme of introducing new greenways, community gardens and local parks. Providing that connection with nature and green space is not a side issue or a luxury: it protects our very health of mind.

Building such healthy communities has to be the cornerstone of improving our health service. A green health system would start with a greater emphasis on prevention and primary care. One of the mechanism that could help deliver that is to give our communities nurses much greater power. In areas where we have difficulty getting GP cover we would look at giving highly trained nurses to carry some of the load of issuing routine prescriptions and administering basic procedures. Such changes are part of what we need to do to help keep people out of our emergency wards. We need such a holistic health service, it is one where everyone is treated the same.


North South East and West

If we are going to get our response to climate right then we are going to have to manage our island North and South in a co-ordinated way. When you start planning for flooding on a river catchment basis you see that Donegal is linked to Derry in a way that cannot be ignored. You realise that Dundalk is part of the Bann catchment. We have the same environment on either side of the border and will have everything to gain from learning from each other and sharing our expertise and resources as much as we can.

One of the first difficult decision facing the next Government will be what to do about building a new electricity interconnector from Meath up to Tyrone. Despite the fact that it will save money for every electricity consumer it is the one thing that Sinn Fein and Fine Gael in the border counties seem to agree on, they have done everything they can to stop it being built. The opposition on the Northern side of the border seems to be just as strong.

Having worked with Arleen Foster on the establishment of the all island single electricity market I know it is possible to work in cooperation. We need to pick up on the aspiration to seek accommodation rather than conflict which she expressed in her inauguration speech as leader of the DUP last week. We could start by making sure that interconnector gets built and then see if we could make the corridor from Belfast to Dublin the centre of a test bed location for new low carbon technologies.

We will be competing for investment with the Northern Power house that George Osbourne has in mind and will need the scale and combination of resources we have on both sides of the border if we are going to win. We already have examples of such collaboration. Children in the North with heart conditions come down to the Mater and Donegal patients head to Augnacloy hospital. More of that sort of collaboration should be what we are looking to achieve in this centenary of 1916.

We also need to work east west and not just compete with our British neighbours. Our economy always gains when the British economy is strong and we have massive spin offs from the fact that we are so close to the global financial centre in London.

We took a back seat in the Scottish referendum, while our Party made clear our support for the call by our Scottish colleagues for a yes vote. This year, when it comes to the Brexit referendum we should not be so silent. For all the failings of the European Union, and we have seen some of them at close hand, the reality is we will need real international collaboration if we are to achieve the sustainable transition we seek.

Our union is the greatest example of such collaboration and it is already under remarkable stress following the financial and now refugee crisis. If Britain leaves it could tear the Union apart and bring back border patrols to our Island. We do not want that.

If elected into office we should head over to our British colleagues and make our case. We should do the same with all our Irish relatives in the UK. They are not small in number. I will be calling on my ten first cousins over there and try and persuade them not to go. This too should be our election issue.

Reform at home

If elected into office we also need to concentrate in reforming the political system here at home. Phil Hogan got the reform of local and regional Government wrong in two critical ways. Firstly when it came to regional Government he divided up the country with all the creativity of a cost accountant. We need five or six regional authorities with real powers rather than the three gerrymandered quangos that he put in place.

At the more local level we need to start making the Public Partnership Networks work by providing for a new tier of leadership at a local level beneath the county councillors. In the early 1990’s we build up a network of Community Development Programmes and Family Resource centres which played a remarkable role in helping disadvantaged communities tackle issues relating to consistent poverty.

They were centred around decision making coming from local people rather than from either elected or public officials. They were starting to be a real success but for a variety of reasons were stood down over the last decade, to be replaced by a form of community development where the state had a more central role in providing services for the same needs.

It is time for use to go back to the proper community lead model. We can expand the role to complement the work on poverty eradication by also giving the local community responsibility for how they protect and enhance their own local environment, how they decide to create their own energy system and food supply, how they can support their own local business community. Surely this would help people become true republicans, seeing the state as your own, rather than some distant force.

The election

We enter this election campaign with forty of the best candidates you could find. We enter it as a party on the rise once more. New members are coming into what is a united, committed and experienced political party. We don’t have a penny to our name but we are running this election on a massive voluntary effort. If we can carry it off, imagine the victory it would be over the concept that politics is all about the money.

We are in a row with RTE because they have decided to exclude us from their leadership debates. Like the Government, their criteria for inclusion are rooted in the past.

Whatever about that battle we will go into this election with a positive approach. We support the call for the Taoiseach for a respectful debate

If RTE is not going to facilitate it then I am calling on the Taoiseach to suggest some other forum where we could have a respectful and wide ranging dialogue on what he thinks this climate change challenge will mean for our country. I would accept whatever format and moderator he may choose.

Finally I should say that we would take such a collaborative approach with every party or grouping that gets elected. We will play whatever constructive role we can in the formation of the new Government. We have made our position clear. We will work with everyone, adopting a positive approach should we be either in Government or opposition.

To work effectively we will need a team of people in place.

Politics is a team game and I am hoping to lead a team of Green TD’s back into the dail.

To serve as well as lead our people.

To help bring about the practical and sustainable solutions that will improve our quality of life.

To set a new destiny for our country by looking to the future and not the past.

Some people say Ireland will figure out the Greens were right in 10 years’ time. But by then it will be too late.

The leaders of 1916, however we view them, believed independence was an idea whose time had come. They set out to grasp history.

The Green message is more relevant and more important than ever.

We have to grab history and shape the future.

We have to value our interdependence as well as our independence

We have to act now.

Vote Green number one in 2016

Thank you.