Irelands Green Party in disarray as ugly Enda Kenny Sinn Fein smear backfires

The Green Party in government with FF since 2007 quickly jettisoned many of its key principles.
It has u-turned on

• incineration
• the use of Shannon Airport by the US military
• Tara
• Corrib gas

Two councillors, Bronwen Maher (Dublin City Council) and Chris O'Leary (Cork City Council) resigned from the Green Party in protest at the direction the leadership had taken since going into government with Fianna Fail in 2007. The party was rocked by the decision of former MEP Patricia McKenna to resign and run as an Independent candidate in the European elections.
She said:

I resigned from the party when I realised it was naive of me to think that they were going to go back to their principles and ideals.

Patricia McKenna savaged the Minister for the Environment and party leader John Gormley for engaging in policy U-turns.
She said:

I do think he has serious questions to answer regarding what he is standing over in Government, considering his views on the Fianna Fáil leadership in the past.

In recent weeks the Greens Munster Euro candidate Dan Boyle has endeavoured to distance himself from decisions taken by the FF/Green government.
Today the Party endeavoured to smear the FG leader Enda Kenny. The crude smear attempt backfired and has left the Green Party with egg on its face. A Green Party press conference today degenerated into farce and left Gormley and his party badly wounded. The Greens failed to provide the smoking gun.
Mr Kenny denied claims by former Green Party leader Trevor Sargent that he had asked Mr Sargent to approach Sinn Fein after the last election with a view to supporting a Fine Gael led led rainbow government

If I had been prepared to do business with Sinn Féin after the last election I would have been Taoiseach for the past two years," said Mr Kenny.

Mr Kenny said that it was absurd to suggest he would ask another party leader to approach another party about the formation of Government. "If I have anything to say to another party I will say it directly," he added.
A statement released later by the Fine Gael press office pointed to a quote in The Irish Times in June 2007 where Mr Sargent said in the Dáil: "If you wanted to be in government you would have talked to Sinn Féin. You do not want to be in government."