Policy-making 21st century style: by tweet

I didn't expect the public announcement that the Government will bring in climate legislation to come via Twitter but that's what happened just before lunchtime yesterday.

Yesterday was the culmination of a month long push to get the Government to provide long promised time for a new debate of the Climate Protection Bill in the Seanad. That's the bill Ivana Bacik drafted for us to launch our climate law campaign back in 2007 and introduced in the Seanad when she became a Trinity Senator.

Ivana raised the bill again on the order of business at the start of the month but the Government still wouldn't set a date for a debate 19 months after they promised to. In turn, she made it clear she'd force a vote on it by the end of the month unless a date was agreed.

So our supporters sent emails to Senators associated with their consituency and people in Munster and Dublin wrote to Dan Boyle and Deirdre de Burca. And everyone wrote to John Gormley.

Even before Dan Boyle called for a review of the Programme for Government there were signs that things were moving. On 13th May in a reply to emailers Senator Boyle wrote:

A government bill would get over the inconsistencies of these bills and would put in place appropriate measures that can help the government meet its commitments as expressed in the programme for government. it is hoped that an announcement on this can be made in the near future.

 

When he did call for a review of the PfG two days later the media predominantly saw it as the Greens getting jittery in Government. As I wrote in my last blog post it looked to me more like a party preparing to use its increased leverage to extract policy gains from its coalition partners. And then came the media briefings that lead to last Sunday's hopeful headline in the Busines Post: "Greens demand climate change law in new coalition deal".

But still, that all pointed to movement after the elections, not before. So when I took my seat in Seanad public gallery yesterday for the last Order of Business of the month it didn't suprise me that neither Green Party senator was there to hear Senator Bacik, with the backing the 6 university senators and the Fine Gael and Labour benches, ask for a date for a debate on our climate bill. The Government Leader, Sen Donie Cassidy, wasn't forthcoming and so the issue went to a vote which the Government won by 25 votes to 18.

It was only as David Norris called a vote on another issue and Senators prepared to press their electronic voting buttons that Dan Boyle entered the chamber arriving post-haste from the launch of the Greens election video. Thinking it was still the climate vote his response to Sen Norris' attempts to lobby him was suggestive: "we're bringing in a bill, we're bringing in a bill" (that won't be on the record of the house as the stenograhpers don't record what Senators shout across the chamber during votes!).

I spoke with Dan privately when the Order of Business was over and the signals were encouraging. But I kept my twittering to the official record - that he missed the vote and the Government refused a debate on the climate bill. Only to find he replied by tweet to say "As I've told you the Government will introduce a Climate Change Bill and it will happen soon".

Now the Government hasn't said that yet, rather the Greens have said they'll make it an issue in the review of the PfG. Or is the deal already done? That would explain why, after a six month gap, the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change met twice in recent weeks before the Sunday Business Post article.

We may have to wait for 30 years to know for sure, but Eamon Ryan's headline grabbing remarks in today's Irish Times suggest the answer.