"Some people tell the truth and tell it slant. We tell it straight."

Friends, members, it’s good to see you all. It’s so good to be here again in Waterford. I know this city well. I was a boarder in the convent school here, and had my first swanky meal in this hotel, the Tower. – Fish and chips – it was magic. I was 12 years old. There was a wedding in the Tower too, not today or even yesterday but in the 12th century, and not this tower but Reginald’s Tower opposite.

It was the marriage of Aoife McMurrough Kavanagh to Strongbow. As schoolgirls we used to say: ”You know Aoife had her reception in the Tower! “That’s an old Ursuline Convent joke we used to like when we were footloose and fancy free. Aoife was from Borris, and so am I.

Connections are important and that is why we’re here. We’re connected by our vision and our passion for shaping politics, perception and principles. But I’m not going to engage in some nostalgic view of the past year neither am I going to have a belt and braces view of what’s to come.

I want to talk with you about where we are, how we’re feeling and where we are going as a Party. In the great buzzword of our time: I want to have a conversation with you.

We’ve been on a rollercoaster for the past few years, starting with that giddy night in the Mansion House almost three years ago. We’d spent the previous five years in opposition exposing failed policies, reminding anyone who’d listen that the runaway train of bricks and mortar would eventually run out of track. We developed new policies. We campaigned, we marched, we defined ourselves. God it was easy! So Easy.

You know that we decided to stand up and be counted. To help govern this country. We embarked on the challenge of reconciling delusional optimism with realism, heroism with humility. There were hiccups with our coalition partners in those early days – actually to be truthful, massive indigestion - which we had to cure, in private and in public.

But we held our nerve. Then it all changed, this country changed.

Who would have thought a year later we’d be staring wide-eyed at a country full of ghost estates, with for sale signs flapping in the wind.

People told us we were the unluckiest party alive, going into government just as Armageddon set in. They told us it was crazy staying in to clean up the mess from all night party which we hadn’t even crashed. It would have been easier to curse those who caused it and run. But we held our nerve.

We stayed, we delivered, we took tough decisions, and it cost us. The local elections bore this out. Only those who have run in an election and lost will know the pain of losing. You go home after the count; your house is full of undelivered leaflets, empty coffee cups on your desk and good luck cards on the mantelpiece; your family and friends trying to cheer you up. It’s awful. No words from me will help, except the fact that I too was that soldier. I lost not just one election, but many.

But I held my nerve.

Many of you will do the same and come back to stand again. In the toughest election of all time for our Party you walked those estates, you walked those towns, you walked and walked and I am proud of you - all of you.

Next up we had a Renewed Programme for Government, a document with new ideas for a changed country, one where the old language of high growth would be replaced with that of sustainability and fairness. We drafted the document, crafted it, moulded it, executed it and you supported it.
It is a document full of green fingerprints, not carbon footprints, green ideals not developer deals. It is now the daily agenda of Government.

We are the wily Davids toppling the bloated Goliaths of tradition and convention.

I am proud of what we did in education. We prioritised education and when we tell our constituents what we did on their behalf, they know that this party the delivered for education and they too are proud of that.
My friends, the new Planning and Development Bill, going through the House, is terrifying the developers and some councillors who did their utmost to destroy this country. The Bill will mean the planning system will have planning. Rezoning will be replaced by de -zoning. And those that think they can speculate their way back to wealth will have the windfall tax on the sale of rezoned land to contend with. I pay tribute to the reforms our leader has made in this area. This is why it’s good to be in Government.
As a very new minister, in a very new portfolio, I am ready to deliver change in the areas of equality, integration, social inclusion and human rights. The truth is that both the broken society and the broken economy resulted from the growth of inequality. I will have a careful look, a very careful look, at how we address inequality in this country. That’s my focus.

Outside this hotel today we had a protest. As the only rural TD in this Party I want to say that we have done more for animal welfare than any other Party. People protesting today about the end of shooting and fishing are wrong. We are opposed to setting animal against animal - that is our national policy. But it is disingenuous to try and roll fishing and shooting into a campaign to protect Stag Hunting. We are not engaged in some salami slicing technique: stag hunting today, fishing tomorrow. Those who protest against the Green Party say that they know and respect the environment more than we do. Well if that’s the case they have only one Party to vote for. Us.

We protect the countryside
We protect the rural environment
We protect watercourses, streams, rivers and lakes
We protect SACs.

They want the countryside they need us.

On that historic night in the Mansion House there were those who wanted us to stay in opposition. Some didn’t object to government but couldn’t handle the F F words. Then we had NAMA and that searing debate. Probably the most difficult decision we had to take.

Members who voted against NAMA are still green at heart. Still know that the only place to get things done is in Government. Still know that the only Party who can deliver change is our Party. In the words of that song Forty Shades of Green is true. We have dark greens, light greens, emerald greens…… all with a view -all still green. In our Party we have the radical and the restless, the idealist and the pragmatist……rural and urban .. all still green.

As Christopher Fettes one of our founders said to me:“There was no mistake in going into Government but mistakes are made in Government.” He’s right.

We’ve made mistakes. But we have to be buoyed up by belief in what we are doing. And while we have that belief we will continue to drive a new political agenda. We drive it with fire in our eyes. Still fresh to the possibility of making politics radically different on our watch.

I’ve been self employed most of my working life. Used to getting things done; solving problems changing tack. You have to when your business depends on it. If there is one thing I find utterly energy sapping it is the pace of devising legislation. I’m a quick thinker, decision maker.

We’ve just had the winter Olympics but it’s nothing compared to the world of the officialese and jargon. These are the languages of legal gymnastics. Let me give you an example: “The Board may determine by resolution, if so requested by the chairperson (or deputy chairperson if the chairperson is not available or where the office is present), where he or she is of the opinion that it is necessary to ensure the efficient discharge of the business of the board…’ Couldn’t they just say: ‘The Chair of the Board can decide…’

The pace of legislation as it meanders through the Dáil is slower than… how shall I describe it - the languid lifecycle of the Freshwater Pearl Mussel – Margaritifera Margaritifera - in case you don’t know. This little bivalve on the brink of extinction is as old as the language of the legislative process. Both move slowly, both are so so old… one is an indicator of how Government works the other is a truly important indicator of the status of our water. If you have the freshwater Pearl Mussel you have clean water. If you have official legalese you can stagnate.

But to move on: it’s said every political party needs an enemy to keep its energy high and focused. Sometimes you might need to create an enemy. It is said, that in public Coca Cola may want to teach the world to sing but in its corridors the motto is ‘Destroy Pepsi’. Our enemy is not the opposition nor our coalition partners but time. The clock races towards 2012 and we have that Programme to deliver.
We hold our nerve and we continue to challenge the so-called impossible. We do this because we don’t know what’s supposed to be impossible. In Government sometimes people say ‘Look you can’t do that.’ We say: ‘Why not?’ They say because you can’t.’ We say: “we didn’t know we couldn’t do it, so we do it.”

In an old run down dilapidated shed in the early days of cartoon animation, to inspire his team of brilliant cartoonists, Walt Disney had a slogan painted on the back wall of his studio: “If you can dream it you can do it.” That’s what we’re doing, right here, right now, and right for our country.

Our challenge now as a party is to complete the transition from a campaigning party to a maturing governing one, but we can only do this by working together. Though we idolise the lone ranger travelling those lonely gulches to settle wrongs, the evidence points to the conclusion that great things are achieved by great groups of people. Great politics are shaped by great people. We are that group. I want to see this party, which for decades had the ability to plan for what has not yet happened, to sit easily between the realities of governance and the values we’ve always had. I want our party to be one that is confident about what it is doing in office, whilst embracing internal debate and critique.

I want this party to
- be one fuelled by the energy of its members
- Still bound by radical environmentalism.
- Still proud of its differences from the other parties
- Continuing to put ethics at the heart of the way it does its work

I want to see more participation and opportunities for the women of this party. We have female members in the home, on farms, in business, on the margins. I want to see them empowered in this party so that our women have far more to offer than just electoral potential. I’m not sure about quotas. I’m not sure about list systems with gender bias.

But I am sure we want more women in this Party at every level; devising policy and making this Party the most woman friendly on this Island. To this end I am going to guarantee the best supports for the women in the Green Party. And I want your help to do it!

Some people “tell the truth but tell it slant,” as Emily Dickenson once said. We tell it straight – for our members, for the public, for the country….

Dan Boyle knows about de banks in Cork. We know about the banks in trouble. We also know that denial ain’t only a river in Egypt.

Denial can obscure obstacles and stiffen resolve. It can liberate. Great groups are not realistic places. They are exuberant, irrationally optimistic. Never afraid of challenges; green party members are full of creative boundary- bursting solutions. We have hungry, urgent minds. We want and they want to problem solve creatively, laterally and to make this first time business of being in Government memorable and different. Into that mix has to come doggedness.

For every ray of clear pellucid light there are dark days and troubles but together we can look at disappointments as a learning experience not a pretext for punishment. Sometimes we are unrealistic with ourselves. Being in Government is demanding but it is where we effect change not dream it; implement ideals not protest against them. If your look back on the days of the Rainbow Government they had crises every ten minutes…. So let’s make a good job of this governing business and in years to come say to ourselves: “What we did was truly something.”

That’s why I am in Government to deliver the truly something for the future. One of the world’s great hockey players once said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” We’re taking the shots. While we are in Government we are driving that change, changing how we deliver politics not just for now but for all time. What matters not is left or right but getting it right.

The head of our Group, our green group is John Gormley, our Leader, our Friend. He acts decisively but never arbitrarily. He makes decisions - tough ones at times but he is fair. Devising an atmosphere in which all of us can work for the better good of this Party. He leads our Party at a tough time. Tough times require strong leaders. He has what it takes. Green Party members I ask you to welcome John Gormley TD, leader of the Green Party/Comhaontas Glas.