Is this a taste of what’s to come for the Greens?

So Dick Roche decided to give the go-ahead on the M3 on Tuesday, around the time it became clear that a Fianna Fáil/Green coalition was going to happen. The decision didn’t need cabinet approval and the Department of the Environment decided not to issue a press release on the matter.  According to the department that decision can not now be reversed.

The lack of a press release made sense – on whatever level the decision was made, making it public knowledge on the verge of a Green Party vote would have thrown the entire agreement into disarray and certainly lessened considerably the support for the Programme for Government within the party.

So the real question isn’t why it was kept quiet, but who’s decision was it?

Perhaps Dick Roche saw the writing on the wall as the Greens approached Government Buildings and decided to secure a pet project of his while simultaneously rocking the boat for his successor.

Or maybe Fianna Fáil agreed to hand over Environment to the Greens as part of the last minute negotiations on Tuesday and so quietly told the outgoing minister or department to sign the resumption order before Gormley could have his say on the matter.

If it is one of these many of the more skeptical Greens will take this as a very bad omen indeed and may begin to agree with Ciarán Cuffe’s recent “deal with the devil” comments. If Fianna Fáil are going to play it cloak and dagger, it’s hard to see how the Greens could maintain their office while maintaining their integrity.

But both of these possibilities ignore the fact that the Greens themselves gave up on the M3 as part of their coalition arrangements <b>and</b>, since news of the decision broke, have been slow to give out and quick to suggest their hands are tied on the matter. The latter point can probably be explained by the fact that no minister would be looking to start a fight with his boss just hours after getting the job, but the former point is extremely important.

If the Green Party decided to jettison their stance on the M3 as part of the Programme for Government they must surely have known that Fianna Fáil were keen to proceed with it, and unwilling to compromise. In other words, the construction was going to go ahead.

Likewise, if the Greens did know of the ministerial offices they’d hold (and by the hints of their negotiating team before Thursday, they did) then they surely would have realised that the Government’s eventual decision to go ahead with construction would have to have John Gormley’s name stamped all over it.

So perhaps, as part of the negotiations, the Greens conceeded that work would re-commence on the site but told Fianna Fáil to do it quietly themselves before Gormley took over, so as to keep the party’s hands clean in the eyes of their membership. If so, it makes Trevor Sargent’s promise to fight this issue from within sound hollow, but it also suggests that maybe the Greens are as naive as people have tried to paint them.