After disappointing results in the recent European and local elections are the Greens on the slide?

The Green Party's TDs at Leinster House

-asks Sinn Féin Dublin Cathaoirleach Justin Moran

While there has been a great deal of focus on the decline in the Fianna Fáil vote in the elections, the poor showing by the Green Party has slipped by with party spokespersons not challenged in their efforts to put the best spin on it.

The loss of both European seats, especially for a party that has consistently emphasised its continental links, is nothing short of disastrous. A quarter of their parliamentary party gone, along with the six-figure sum that annually flowed into Green coffers from having two MEPs.

The loss of widely respected and high-profile Dublin MEP Patricia McKenna has caused division within the party, with defeated local candidates privately expressing dissatisfaction with the manner in which the party's leadership rowed in behind McKenna.

Locally, the Greens are restricted to a mostly urban, specifically Dublin, environment. The party has 18 City and County councillors but two-thirds of them are based in Dublin, Galway City or Cork City. The party has failed to gain any kind of significant presence in rural parts of the country and could not even contest the North-West constituency in the European elections.

It is all so far away from the high spirits that followed the Green breakthrough in 2002, where the party took six seats. Writing in the party's internal newsletter Green Voice in July of 2002, Paul Gogarty declared it was "50 Council seats or bust!" but the party has fallen well short of its internal target.

Of the six Green seats, few can be characterised as safe, with the party scraping in last in three constituencies, including the notoriously volatile Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire, though admittedly the Greens made local gains here. The loss of both Council seats in Dublin South East puts John Gormley under threat and with Mary White's poor showing in Carlow-Kilkenny, there are few signs of any potential Green gains.

While party leader Trevor Sargent TD recently sent a warning shot across the bows of his prospective partners in Labour and Fine Gael, warning them not to take the Greens for granted, it was notable that the two areas where the Greens would differ most from those parties, Europe and neutrality, were not mentioned.

The position the party adopts on the European Constitution will be keenly watched. Labour and Fine Gael are determined to support the referendum when it comes before the people. The Greens were internally divided during the Nice referendum and the party has not decided what position to take on the EU Constitution yet, preferring to wait until the membership has been widely consulted.

But if the Greens move into coalition with a rejuvenated Fine Gael targeting neutrality on one side, and a Labour Party drifting slowly to the right on the other, will they not lose the uniqueness that sets them apart from those two parties? Are they not in danger of becoming a slightly left of centre, middle class Europhile party, nothing more than Labour with an environmental emphasis? And how sustainable is such a party?

The 2002 General Election may well have been the high water mark for the Green Party.

Greens on the wane — don't hold your breath

says Green Party/Comhaontas Glas Dublin South TD, Eamon Ryan

Seismic shifts in politics take time. The socialist movement sprang up in the revolutionary 1840s but 25 years later, it was nowhere on the political landscape. Had there been polling at the time, Marx would have had to resort to saying: "I'm getting a very different message at the doors." It took almost 100 years before social democratic politics started to deliver a welfare state after the Second World War.

We are now only at the beginning of another dramatic shift in global politics, which will see environmentalists setting the agenda for this century. Green politics was born when we first gazed back from space on our own fragile planet. This vision helped us understand the interconnected nature of our living world and came at a time when we were starting to realise the damage being done globally.

The political philosophy that comes from such understanding is different from either the capitalist or socialist ideologies that have gone before. Those ideologies have continually failed to value activities that don't have an economic price, set by either the market or the state. For example, unpaid caring work has never been properly valued. Equally, no price was put on the pollution caused following the production and operation of goods. It is time for us to incorporate a new model for measuring economic growth that includes quality of life indicators. Failure to do so will cost us dearly. Prioritising environment protection as well as social and economic objectives involves changing all three elements rather than just tacking the environmental ones on at the end. Green parties the world over have sprung up on the back of this realisation.

Since the foundation of the Irish Green Party, we have heard the lazy analysis that we were a welcome addition to the political scene but we would not be needed in the long run as other political parties would soon steal our clothes. Many years later and there is still no sign of any party understanding, let alone adopting, a true green agenda. At the same time, Ireland has become one of the least sustainable countries on the planet. We have blown much of our new-found wealth in the wrong direction when we could easily have invested in a green future that would give us secure long-term jobs.

Critics will read the loss of our two MEP seats as a signal of a downturn in our fortunes but if you stand back from that election you will see that the long-term curve of public support for our cause is steadily increasing.

In an election that was dominated by the cult of personality rather than by any discussion of any interesting and forward thinking ideas, the Green Party still managed to more than double its local council representation. The Greens' share of the vote was at the same level of the 2002 general election breakthrough.

What is clear is that there is now a sizeable core Green vote, which will be a base for further electoral success. We are a highly motivated and growing political movement. We have learnt a lot of lessons in our first 20 years a growing. The 20 years a blooming comes next.

• Eamon Ryan was Green Party/Comhaontas Glas Director of Elections for the European and Local Elections.