YOU might have thought that, having achieved his dream of being a minister, John Gormley would have kept his head down for the summer. He had a big new job to get to grips with at the Department of the Environment, territorial civil servants to indulge, batteries to recharge after a tough election campaign and a leadership battle to contest. If he needed to reach out to anybody, it was to those members of his party who are concerned about the lack of Green policies in the programme for government and who are sensitive to the damage that can be caused by living on Planet Bertie.

The general public could have waited for some engagement from their new Environment minister, you might have also have thought. After what seemed like the longest general election campaign in history, most voters would have been happy to recharge their own batteries and allow Gormley to feel his way into his new surroundings. In any case, why would anybody want to present people with constant reminders of how much you had sold out in order to be just another political patsy on the plains of Planet Bertie?

"On Planet Bertie, you can sign blank cheques . . .because everyone does it, apparently. On Planet Bertie, you can spend the average industrial wage on make-up. On Planet Bertie, you can get loans from people that you don't have to pay back. On Planet Bertie, you can save 50,000 without a bank account. And on Planet Bertie, climate change doesn't exist. All that stuff is made up by Trevor Sargent."

Rather than opt for a discreet silence, Gormley was everywhere last week. There he was on the front of The Irish Times on Thursday, promising a directly elected mayor for Dublin sometime soon. On Thursday also, he was on RTE's Morning Ireland, tying himself up in knots over the M3 motorway mess he's in, branded a lawbreaker by the European Commission for proceeding with what it says is an illegal route.

The previous day, he'd been on Matt Cooper's show on Today FM, blithely assuring people that there was nothing he could do to reroute the motorway, and refusing to comment on the incinerator planned for his constituency, which he has previously opposed, but which now renders him mute.

Neither did he seem much interested in dealing with the issue of the Taoiseach's facility for hoovering up money from so-called friends, at least one of whom denies he was ever a friend. There, as though we needed another example, was evidence of how much the Greens . . . the only party who made an issue of the Taoiseach's hookiness during the campaign . . . have been blindsided, tamed and neutralised by Ahern.

What therefore is the point of them?

What do they stand for anymore?

With a straight face on Cooper's show, Gormley announced that he was in government with Ahern, the climate change denier, because he wanted to do something about climate change.

"On Planet Bertie, there's a strange cult called Fianna Fail, a type of religion without vision or values; and every year in August they go on their annual pilgrimage to one of their sacred sites, the tent at Galway races, where they pay homage to their gods and bestow them with gifts for doing their bidding."

People who are cynical about politics will tell you that politicians change their minds all the time . . .that they say one thing one day, and the complete opposite the following day. But that isn't true, not all of the time, anyway. Politicians who don't stand for anything, whose core principle is the achievement of power for power's sake, do change their views, regularly and rapidly, cynically and opportunistically.

Politicians of principle change sometimes too, but that is usually after years of talking about and studying an issue and realising that changing circumstances require changed approaches. Politicians of principle don't run to the nearest cabinet seat like a hungry and brainless cat to the nearest bowl of Whiskas.

"Oh yes, it's a strange place, Planet Bertie. So strange and so alien to our sensibilities, that it's a planet we Greens would like to avoid. For let there be no doubt, we want Fianna Fail and the PDs out of government."

Gormley's speech to the annual conference is still on the Green Party website and is worth reading in order to fully appreciate the breathtaking brazenness of what subsequently occurred. This was no top-of-thehead rallying of the troops, a conveyor belt of cheeky one-liners designed to get the faithful warmed up and feeling good about themselves.

This was a carefully worded presentation on the theme of ethics and standards which made specifically clear how Gormley and the Greens perceived Fianna Fail to be a byword for corruption. "You can end this gombeenism, my friends, " Gormley told the conference. "You can make it happen. You can end the nightmare of Planet Bertie in summer 2007."

How hollow those words seem now.

ell [memo to younger readers: he used to be Minister for Justice] wants things to stay the same. It doesn't matter what Bertie says or does. Michael will stick with him. The PD enforcer has become the Tammy Wynette of Irish politics standing desperately by his man, Bertie."

Later in that speech, Gormley promised that in government, the Greens would introduce the "strictest ethical standards ever seen in this country. We will curb spending not just at election time but between elections. We will severely cap personal donations and ban corporate donations. We will introduce a register of lobbyists to curb the influence on policy."

In the Green/FF programme for government, all of those promises have been abandoned, as have previous commitments and policies on Tara, the co-location of hospitals, incineration and the length of the Dail term. Gormley replaces McDowell as the Tammy Wynette of his time, standing desperately by his man, Bertie.

One hopes that the D.I.V.O.R.C.E. will be very painful indeed.