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LAST UPDATE | 1 Dec 2024
GREEN PARTY LEADER Roderic O’Gorman has won the party’s only seat in a hotly contested constituency count.
He was elected on the 13th count in Dublin West.
The party, which picked up 12 seats after a swell of support in the 2020 election, was facing virtual wipeout in the general election, with O’Gorman admitting it was entering a period of “rebuild”.
O’Gorman, the outgoing Minister for Children and Equality, narrowly secured the fifth seat in Dublin West, with Ruth Coppinger taking the fourth seat.
“I’m relieved, delighted and a bit emotional as well. It’s been a long, long two days here,” O’Gorman said shortly after the final results were announced.
“Despite the fact that the Greens have had a bad result, we are very much here for the long haul. The work to rebuild our party begins tomorrow, and it is incredibly important that we will have a voice in Dáil Éireann”.
Speaking to reporters earlier today, O’Gorman said he has “no regrets” about going into a three-party government in 2020, but said the two main coalition partners did them “no favours”.
The electorate has since removed any prospect of the party re-entering government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who are poised to take the lion’s shares of seats in the 34th Dáil.
Outgoing Green Party Minister Catherine Martin has failed to retain her seat in Dublin Rathdown, finishing in sixth place in the four-seat constituency.
Martin, who was Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media since June 2020 blamed the drop in support for Greens on the “old story of the junior coalition partner getting punished”.
Similar results were seen in from outgoing Green Ministers in Dún Laoghaire and Carlow-Kilkenny, where neither Ossian Smyth or Malcolm Noonan managed to retain their seats.
Speaking to RTÉ, former party leader Éamon Ryan said that getting O’Gorman back to the Dáil would be a “huge step for rebuilding the party post-election”.
Roderic O’Gorman said Green candidates were getting “very few transfers” from either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.
“I don’t think they did us any favours but I wasn’t expecting them to do us favours,” he said at the count centre in Phibblestown.
“We have a very distinct political philosophy from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, it is harder to see the difference between those two parties, and I think if they go into government again, which looks likely, the difference is more and more difficult to see”.
O’Gorman added that the Greens were “very different from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael when they went into government together in 2020.
“We took the risk of going in with them, we were able to deliver, but there are political consequences for taking the risk and we suffered them over this weekend,” O’Gorman said.
With additional reporting from Megan O’Brien
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did the loyalist protests make it to the real capital?
@alphasully: hilarious & witty at the same time.
@alphasully: Oh hang on a minute! Let me think of some strange unintelligent statement to make using presumed stereotypes. Like my post, LIKE MY FU#KING POST!!!
@TommyC: touchy much
@alphasully: should of sent down a proper fire brigade the dublin fire brigade and not them amateur s in the cork fire brigade. Fire would been out in no time ..lol
And also how can you call a place with Feck all government buildings or any buildings of note the real capital
Would somebody let me know what exactly is on fire??!! It would have been great if the author had done it but there are no real journalists here just trainees it seems
@Jordan Salanger: aw poor you! Try Google.
@Paul Furey: Guess this type of journalism is for you. The Sun reader, yeah?
@Jordan Salanger: looks like a scrap yard
@Jordan Salanger: I read somewhere else it was a recycling centre. Looks like a car from the pictures. Did you not look at the picture?
@Paul Furey: ….or maybe you’re just looking at the pictures, yeah? Pop down to Easons and buy a coloring book for yourself!
@K C: but confirmation would be nice
@Jordan Salanger: National Recycling Ltd.
Passed by it earlier on this evening. I literally could see about 10ft while driving, horrendous.
I’ve been avoiding Cork for years to be honest, no need to tell me. It not that I don’t like Cork, it’s just I don’t get it at all, I mean what’s it all about anyway?
@This time its personable!: Likewise us Cork people don’t get you and would like you to continue your absence but I’ll try and explain it to you. Ireland is like a really good bottle of wine but as you know wine won’t last in a bottle without a decent Cork. That’s us. Thanks.
Is that what the Northside of Cork looks like??
@Sweet Daffodil Mulligan: looks like the Springfield tyre fire…
@EdmundOrlando: without the bubble
It was a scrap metsl yard that caught on fire yesterday evening black smoke everywhere thank god nobody got hurt
have your say