Former Green Party Senator Deirdre de Burca has responded to criticisms about her decision to resign her Seanad seat last week.
Read the full statement
In a statement, the Wicklow-based Green denied she had threatened to damage the party and that her actions had been triggered by personal disappointment about failing to secure a job in Europe.
However she insisted that this issue was just one of a number of concerns she had about how the party was being treated by Fianna Fáil in Government.
Ms de Búrca claims that her party had only agreed to support the nomination of European Commissioner Maire Geoghegan Quinn on condition that she included a Green in her cabinet, having previously lobbied for former MEP Pat Cox.
She said party leader John Gormley had told her Ms Geoghegan Quinn had agreed to this, and that his subsequent failure to have this deal honoured had prompted her resignation.
The former Senator claimed that her party leader was willing to allow the Greens to be 'regularly outmanouevred' by Fianna Fáil in order to stay in Government.
She said she turned down a subsequent offer of chef de cabinet at the European Court of Auditors because she wanted to make a serious contribution to a sustainable Europe.
Ms de Búrca said she hoped her resignation would cause the Green Party Parliamentary Party members to seriously rethink their role in Government.
If they did not, she claimed, they risked consigning the Green Party in Ireland to political oblivion for the foreseeable future.
Ms de Búrca also pointed out that she has resigned from the Green Party Parliamentary Party, but remains a Green Party member.
