All anyone will remember is two Greens voted with Sinn Féin

Yet the incident – in which the pair supported a Sinn Féin motion – oddly bolsters the main Government parties.

It makes it easier for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to argue at the next election that if you vote Green you will get Dark Green.

The bleeding hearts of environmentalism will give us real change – on a political level.

They’ll usher in Sinn Féin, or so the argument from FF and FG will go.

The actual truth or otherwise of this idea – that the Greens will support a Sinn Féin government – is neither here nor there.

The fact that two of their members have voted with Sinn Féin in the Dáil is exactly enough.

And if you thought the Greens’ Turf War was a bad business, consider another turf war.

It’s the fight for the fourth green field – do you really want that? Can you afford it?

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will make hay. You just can’t trust the Greens.

The Greens will go in with Mary Lou McDonald, or so the Blueshirts and Soldiers of Destiny will mutter on the doorsteps.

The actions of Neasa Hourigan and Patrick Costello (you did know those household names, didn’t you?) make it hard for Eamon Ryan to counter this argument, which he might call a smear. But their votes with Sinn Féin are on the Dáil record.

And members of what Sinn Féin likes to call “the conservative parties” will also mutter about Neasa sharing a constituency with Mary Lou, who needs a running mate in Dublin Central to take two Sinn Féin seats

Again, the sheer unlikelihood of Neasa jumping ship to this extent doesn’t even come into it.

She herself has entirely enabled such a rumour machine, however preposterous the suggestion.

Neasa and Patrick are both new Green deputies, and some might say they’re rather green in terms of political nous.

Because they simply haven’t been around the block for long enough.

Both are extremely vulnerable to a second Sinn Féin candidate joining the slate of runners in their constituencies next time out.

They might think that tacking a little further to the left helps to cover that flank, but does it really?

What about the comfortable people of mild environmental conscience who piously vote Green in the first place?

The chances are that it will frighten those horses.

One thing is clear – it will soon be forgotten that these two concerned Greens lost the party whip over a new hospital that won’t be open in time for either of the next two general elections – and which won’t be located in either of their constituencies.

They’ve been noble over the National Maternity Hospital.

But all anyone will remember is that they voted with Sinn Féin.