8 Sept 2007

Irish Greens backtracking on hunting

Had this from the Green Party of England and Wales Animal Rights group, pretty shocking/not surprising...well I certainly will continue to take the piss of those Green Party member who say 'trust me', there are power structures, we all risk being absorbed, no room for egos, careerism or this kind of stuff where you make compromises to get power and end up simply being stuffed.

Contrasts at least with the Green Party support here for ending primate experiments, lets not be tribal when our tribe the green painted one does good lets praise, when less than good lets criticise.

The Irish Animal Rights context is I guess a difficult one and you have to build support for a ban however this decision does not taste good to m.

> Irish Greens backtracking on hunting, they have also granted hare coursing
licences!
>
> http://www.banbloodsports.com/
> Licences for hare coursing clubs
> 23 hours ago
>
> Licences are to be issued to the Irish Coursing Club for the capture and
tagging of hares.
>
> Environment Minister John Gormley granted the licence for the coming
season, but stressed that clubs will be strictly monitored to ensure they
adhere to conditions. He said on the basis of previous breaches, one of the
affiliated clubs will be excluded from holding a licence, while the
activities of two other clubs will be curtailed.
>
> Meanwhile, the minister said he was still considering an application made
by the Ward Hunt Union under the Wildlife Act 1976, in relation to carted
stag hunting.
>
> ________________
> Ward Hunt asked to address concerns
> Minister for the Environment John Gormley has asked the Meath-based Ward
Union Hunt to address certain concerns about its stag hunt before he makes a
final decision on whether to grant it a licence for the forthcoming season.
>
> It was reported in recent days that Mr Gormley was going to refuse to
grant a licence to the Ward Union Hunt for stag hunting.
>
> In a statement this evening, Mr Gormley said he had decided to issue
licences, based on applications under the Wildlife Act 1976, to the Irish
Coursing Club for the capture and tagging of hares for the coming season.
> _______________________________________________
> Policy-animals mailing list
> Policy-animals@lists.greenparty.org.uk
> http://lists.greenparty.org.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/policy-animals
>

4 comments:

merrick said...

The Irish greens' behavious since the election is an absolute disgrace. They stood on a platform of opposing US rendition flights coming through ireland and opposing the Hill of ~Tara road scheme, yet they've U-turned on those too.

As this Irish blogger put it;

The party I voted for has been given two seats at the new cabinet table. John Gormley (expected to be the new party leader after Trevor Sargent stepped down post-election in order to keep his promise of not leading them into government with Fianna Fáil) gets Environment and Heritage, while Eamon Ryan was given the Ministry of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. These are clearly key departments from the perspective of implementing more sustainable national policies. So why am I so unhappy?

Well, because I didn’t actually vote for the people. I voted for their damn policies. I voted for a party that pledged to end US military flights in and out of Shannon. I voted for a party that called the routing of the M3 an “act of cultural and historic vandalism”. I voted for a manifesto that pledged to stop that vandalism. Instead we have Greens in government and US military aircraft still fly in and out. And I can’t even say “Well, at least I wouldn’t vote for a party that would allow such a thing.” Wrong! Turns out the people I voted for are happy to allow it — in my name, no less


All of this U-turning for a couple of seats in the governing coalition. What are those seats worth if they make you abandon everything you wanted power to achieve?

It's in total contrast to the Grrens in England, specifically the City Council in Leeds, where the Greens withdrew from the governing coalition on point of principle (opposition to a rubbish incinerator).

Unknown said...

This is nonsense! The M3 decision was taken underhandedly by the previous Minister on the last day of his term of office. The route of the road is nothing to do with the Minister for the Environment and everything to do with the Minister for Transport.

In relation to the hunting, I am reliably informed that the stag huting is under review by the Green Minister. It would seem that he cannot just ban it because he is against it - must have legal reasons for doing so otherwise it'll just be overturned in court.
In relation to the Hare coursing - I'm told the Minister doesn't licence the coursing but the catching of the hares for use in coursing - a fine line I agree. But that legally he cannot refuse the licence unless the Hare population is under threat. Apparently it has doubled in the last year!

These things are never as simplistic as some would have us beleive, if they were any of us could sovle them.

Anonymous said...

Diarmuid

That's an outrageous claim. The Tara decision was taken with John Gormley's full knowledge as a face saving exercise so that he could technically claim to have had nothing to do with it. It was a FF non negotiable. If it was done as underhandedly as you are trying to claim, then why didnt the Greens pull out of the agreement? Instead they propped up a party riddled with corruption and favouritism.

Anonymous said...

It's interesting to get an international perspective on this.

I'm an Irish Green Party member who supports the deal to enter government. It's a fair point to say that we didn't get everything we wanted, but the whole "u-turn" thing is grossly unfair.

The party policy remains the same. The fact is that an insufficient amount of people voted for us in order for us to secure the totality of our policy agenda. Some issues have to be capitulated upon, for the sake of gains in other areas.

Since the deal to enter government, I've asked myself what the purpose of political movements are. The implications of your argument seems to be that movements should be groups of people who hold to their principles and don't compromise. That's fine, but it's not for me. As far as I'm concerned, politics is about changing things for the better - something which simply won't be achieved by standing at the sidelines, cursing the mainstream.

Yes, our hands are dirty, but that's only because we're getting things done.

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