This morning news broke that Déirdre de Búrca, Green Senator and last year’s MEP candidate for Dublin resigned from the Seanad and the Green Party Parliamenary Party.

de Búrca’s letter of resignation to Gormley is very interesting. Published on her site, de Búrca accuses the Green Party of becoming more like Fianna Fáil and abandoning their values:

I regret to say that I can no longer support the Green Party in government, as I believe that we have gradually abandoned our political values and our integrity and in many respects have become no more than an extension of the Fianna Fail party.

Ouch, integrity. Just where and what has the Green Party done in government to abandon its values?

Last Summer, de Búrca was happy to run represent the Green Party and its values in the European Parliament. In recent months, she seemed poised to grab the Commission job that went to a job with Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. Both of these jobs would have entailed her representing us in Europe and waving the Green Party flag and extoling their values in Europe, so what happened that changed her views on the party.

Update: Allan in comments points to Euro job for Shane Sutherland as being her goal in recent months.

She continues illustrating her growing frustration with the Green Party machine:

I have had a number of conversations with you as Party Leader over many months now about my growing discomfort with the decisions that the Green Party has been supporting in government. You have been very aware of my frustration with the fact that despite the Green Party holding the balance of power in this government for some time now, our willingness to try to exercise that influence appears to grow less with every passing week.

And for the zinger she says of Gormley as leader:

It is with regret also that I must also inform you that I have lost confidence in you as Party Leader.

She points to the widening frustration in the party under Gormley’s leadership:

The Parliamentary Party has had almost daily meetings now since well before Christmas at which we have discussed the very real problems we are experiencing in getting Fianna Fail to co-operate with us in implementing policy initiatives that were agreed as part of the original, and the revised Programme for Government.

From stonewalling us and trying to unravel key aspects of our policy initiatives being implemented, to ignoring our input into the preparation of new legislation, to reneging on two key agreements made between Party Leaders, the Fianna Fail Party continues to ‘run rings’ around us and to take advantage of our inexperience and our very obvious fear of facing the electorate.

Just how tenable is Gormley’s leadership when she says:

I believe that in your role as Party Leader you have done a disservice to the Green Party and to its members in allowing this ‘drift’ to occur. It would appear that holding onto office and to seats have become more important to the party than holding on to its fundamental political purpose. We have lost our way as a party and I am sad to say that it has reached a point where I, and most of the people I know, will be unable to vote Green in the next election.

de Búrca came from relative obscurity in 2007 to appointed as one of the Taoiseach’s Seanad appointees, after serving almost 8 years as a Bray councillors. She contested the 2002 General Elections in Wicklow nabbing 3,200 or 5.88% of first preference votes just over a third of the necessary quota. She again came seventh with a bigger first preference trawl – almost 5k- but it still wasn’t good enough.

Despite the very visible prickling between de Búrca and former Green Patricia McKenna in campaining for the last European elections, it is indeed ironic to see de Búrca jumping ship (just like McKenna did), citing intolerance at the FFization of the Green Party. Is McKenna calling up de Búrca for a chat, a coffee and a Kit-Kat saying, “I told you so”?

Will more Greens call it day before the next General Election now that the door of blaming Gormley for climbdowns in policy is open? Time will only tell.

Oh, George Lee, what meme you have started!

And the Green Party statement on de Búrca’s resignation

The Green Party’s TD and senators issued the following statement concerning Deirdre de Burca’s resignation from the Parliamentary Party and from Seanad Éireann:

“We are disappointed by Deirdre’s decision. We are aware that she has been unhappy with her situation for some time.

“The Parliamentary Party is totally united. We will continue to operate in a collegiate way.

“The Green Party is about implementing progressive policies and improving our society. We are serving in Government at a critical time for the country, and we have made tough choices that are vital to the peoples’ interests.

“In Government we have brought about huge changes in Ireland’s energy, planning and enterprise policies. In recent months we have introduced civil partnerships legislation, a levy on carbon and a major programme of political reform, including a directly elected mayor for Dublin this year. Our policies have created tens of thousands of new, valuable jobs.

“Our position has remained the same since entering Government in June 2007. We have come to do a job and as long as we are getting that job done we will stay. If we are not making progress, we will think again. Eight out of 10 of our members backed that view in 2007 when they endorsed the Party’s entry into Government. Precisely the same number again backed that view in October 2009 when they were presented with the Renewed Programme for Government.”

[ENDS]

Make of it what you will!