Does what follows represent the beginning of the end of normal politics and the origin of some other way of governing Ireland?

Challanged by John Gormley of the Green Party twice, Noel Dempsey, Fianna Fail government minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources said on RTE�s the week in politics an hour ago that he would indeed join a cross party alliance to develop a strategy on climate change.

Were anything to come of this post-election, then this would be a very rare and significant moment. It would be a moment where the votes of the considerable majority of people who voted actually meant something. Usually, a standardized situation in Irish and indeed in most government formations always accrues. Most of the time, the votes of just-enough-people-to-make-a-government is all that ever counts.

In this new potential situation, this would be a bit like a national emergency climate change grouping. Whether it could behave like say a government department or a more standard all- party committee remains to be seen.

Gormley compared this potential new situation for governing on climate change in Ireland to the one currently in existence in Denmark.

It�s also the kind of thing Israel does for security/war � that�s show the potential for making big decisions that effect people, eh? If most or all parties in the D�il agreed to this, then government policy in a specific area could be made by most or all parties. This would be a mild dose of consensus politics, and it would also be a bit like how things are supposed to work in government in the other jurisdiction on the island.

It would also be an intriguing validation of one of the Green party�s classic clich�s: �neither left nor right but ahead�

The Greens could sort-of be in government without being in government. Here�s a new, less snappy but more substantial motto for the Greens: �Neither with the left nor the right but both at the same time, whichever is in government�. OK more: �In fact it doesn�t even matter, because we�ll always actually be in government now, at least on climate change. So, what else can we make seem so important that we�ll get another bit of that cross party consensus government going? Ah, doesn�t matter, everything is related to climate change these days anyway��