Elaine Loughlin: Freewheeling Eamon Ryan happy not to play the politics game

As Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil grabbed headlines with leadership changes and budget flyers in recent weeks, the Greens have allowed themselves to be swallowed up by their two big brothers in Government. The most puzzling part is members don’t seem that bothered by it.

“Ireland has three medium-sized parties now and they can soak up a lot of attention. We have to fight for every bit of attention we get. But I think the public still knows what we are about,” one councillor optimistically offered.

“I think people sometimes forget that we are still a small, the minority element in government. To think that we could get more attention nationally than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael is kind of putting us on a par with them, which we’re not.”

Neither does the party seem put out by the relentless green-bashing from some members of the opposition and certainly isn’t making much effort to fight back against this noisy narrative.

This was particularly evident when Mattie McGrath took to his feet this week to make a very specific criticism of Taoiseach Simon Harris, and it wasn’t about housing, health, or even abortion.

“On a point of information, I ask the Taoiseach why he is appointing Deputy Eamon Ryan as Minister for the Environment?” McGrath asked.

He has destroyed rural Ireland, farming and everything else and it is time he was moved out of there. The Taoiseach had an opportunity.”

It may have been an opportunistic move from the Independent TD  — whose intervention was ruled out of order — however, it’s a message that the Green Party is coming up against inside and outside Leinster House.

But just like water off a duck's back — and there is a lot of water around, just ask the farmers McGrath cited — the Greens seem unperturbed.

Instead, as they meet for their annual conference this weekend, members are convinced that their record in Government will stand to them.

It’s a pity the public is either unaware of Green wins in this coalition, or has been led to believe through far more astute messaging and marketing that the two main parties are responsible for many of the positive changes.

It’s a flaw that is recognised, but hasn’t been acted upon.

“We do need to get out and claim full credit more,” said one TD.

“I’ll be asked about hedgerows being cut down but people won’t come to talk about childcare fees because it’s not seen as overtly Green, but it’s Roderic [O’Gorman] who delivered a 50% reduction in childcare fees.

“Similarly, people don’t come to me to talk about that fact that we’ve had four progressive budgets. I don’t think we would have had four progressive budgets if the Greens didn’t go into Government.”

Compounding this issue is the fact that many in the party see themselves as activists first, and politicians second.

When this was put to one TD this week it was taken as a compliment rather than a criticism.

Getting the work done is the priority, advertising achievements is seen as far less important, even if it’s what will ultimately get people re-elected.

'Not into the pantomime'

“A lot of us are not consummate politicians, a lot of us just want to get stuff done, we are not into the pantomime of it all,” another TD said.

Green members worry, rightly or not, that if they were to get cynical and play the other parties at their own game of hype and spin, many of their most dedicated supporters might leave them.

“We do need to look at how we communicate our message, what we’re doing, what we’ve achieved, and I think we probably need to get better at that. We’re probably not natural salespeople,” said one TD.

“We don’t do the Punch and Judy thing,” another senior party member said.

“We don’t do the schoolyard stuff, we just want to get things done and make the case for why things should be done in a productive way.”

Working in a productive manner is something that Ryan has been pilloried for.

In a world of scripted spin, Ryan prefers to freestyle it, which in the past has given the opposition plenty to dine out on, from window sill lettuce to reintroducing wolves.

It has been noted that if some of the ideas proposed by Ryan were put forward by any other politician, they would be lauded and not laughed at.

With just an A4 sheet, scrawled with around five or six bullet points, Ryan launched into another top-of-the-head 10-minute speech on the day Harris was appointed Taoiseach.

Again it played right into the opposition, who were on the edge of their seats waiting to pounce with smart remarks and guffaws.

“There are immediate tasks in warming up the Irish people in delivering a solar revolution, delivering retrofitting and delivering public transport.”

The innocuous enough line was enough to cause an eruption of laughter and heckling across the chamber.

“The deputies can laugh at that but it actually improves and transforms the quality of people’s lives, which it is our job to deliver," Ryan responded, before his spontaneous speech meandered on, at times hitting the mark, at times not.

How can Ryan as leader convince the entire country that voting Green is the right thing to do when he’s not sure what he is going to say to convince them?

Many are confident that simply getting on with the job will be enough to save the party from a similar wipeout to 2011, when a stint in government lost them all six Dáil seats.

“The Greens can be accused of being very high level at times, not being focused on delivery. But in the second half of this Government, we’ve changed that and I think a lot of the big picture stuff that we did in the first half is actually starting to turn into results,” said one member.

Others who have been out canvassing ahead of the local and European elections say that they can now point to new bus routes, local cycle lanes, solar panels on roofs and houses that have been retrofitted in every area.

Why are they not getting up on the rooftops to shout all about it?

This quiet messaging, if you can even call it messaging, is completely at odds with all other political parties and indeed Independents, who as the general election draws nearer will be battling to drown each other out.

For the Greens, it’s a noble but extremely naïve approach.