The Irish Greens have saved many red faces in these islands. If they had pulled the plug on the Fianna Fail led coalition government on Saturday the forthcoming British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Swansea next week would have gone down the tubes at great expense as it would have been too late to cancel flights and the hotel. It would have attracted a great deal of ire as ironically the key theme of the two-day session is to focus on efforts to tackle the recession and build towards economic recovery across Britain and Ireland.
Gary Kent is a graduate of international relations. After spells in management in British Rail and the Co-Op he began work in parliament in 1987 where he was active for two decades on Anglo-Irish peace activity against terrorism and now as secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, which he has visited 27 times since 2006. He used to be a columnist for Fortnight Magazine and writes a regular column for the Kurdish Rudaw outlet and many other publications.