{"id":360886,"date":"2026-02-28T13:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T13:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/360886\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T13:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T13:57:11","slug":"does-the-green-party-have-a-future-members-say-climate-has-slipped-down-political-agenda-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/360886\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Green Party have a future? Members say climate has slipped down political agenda \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a telling scene from Neasa N\u00ed Chian\u00e1in\u2019s new fly-on-the-wall documentary, Forever is Now, which follows Eamon Ryan<\/a>\u2019s last 18 months as a politician, the former Green Party<\/a> leader is seen losing his temper only once.<\/p>\n

The moment occurs during the National Economic Dialogue in the summer of 2024, just three weeks before Ryan stepped down as leader. <\/p>\n

Ryan has just listened to Simon Harris<\/a>\u2019s second speech at the event and is seething at the lack of focus on climate<\/a> in both speeches. <\/b><\/p>\n

By that stage of the Fine Gael-Fianna F\u00e1il-Green coalition government\u2019s term, the Greens were no longer popular, yet Ryan was not relenting. <\/p>\n

Until the end, he kept hammering the message of climate change at every turn, including at the weekly meeting of the three coalition leaders.<\/p>\n

As the film demonstrates, the tide had ebbed by 2024 amid rising energy prices and a crescendo of blowback, mostly from rural and transport interests. <\/p>\n

Ryan was being pilloried on social media and polling for The Irish Times<\/a> showed climate was, at the time, a priority issue for just 3 per cent of people.<\/p>\n

His party had its best-ever election in 2020, winning 12 D\u00e1il seats. It drove a hard bargain for entering government.<\/p>\n

The party insisted on a 50 per cent cut in emissions, binding climate legislation, a radical move away from single-car culture towards public and sustainable transport, and policies prioritising nature and biodiversity over development and pollution.<\/p>\n

In the 2024 general election, the Greens suffered a hiding, losing 11 of their 12 seats. <\/p>\n

Ryan has often quoted Samuel Beckett\u2019s line: \u201cFail, fail again, fail better.\u201d <\/p>\n

While a heavy blow, it was not the wipeout of 2011 when the Green Party lost all six of its deputies.<\/p>\n

The party retained an Oireachtas presence, a cohort of councillors and State funding. It hopes for a quicker recovery. But, for now, it is in the wilderness.<\/p>\n

So has the new Government<\/a> abandoned the policies at the heart of the previous administration? <\/p>\n

From that vantage point, new leader Roderic O\u2019Gorman<\/a> and party colleagues claim \u2013 as they meet in Kilkenny this weekend for their annual conference \u2013 considerable slippage. <\/p>\n

They all refer to recent comments by Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O\u2019Brien that the 2030 targets \u2013 51 per cent reductions in emissions \u2013 will not be met as an example of a Government either not trying, or simply giving up.<\/p>\n

\"GreenGreen Party leader Roderic O\u2019Gorman TD.
\nPhotograph: Stephen Collins\/Collins Photos <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland will miss emissions-cut target by half, says Minister for Climate Darragh O\u2019BrienOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Another recent example, O\u2019Gorman argues, is the Government\u2019s approach to the Climate Action Act. <\/p>\n

\u201cLook at its efforts to bypass obligations by carving out exemptions,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe draft law about the state-owned LNG [liquefied natural gas] facility includes a provision that says the Climate Action Act doesn\u2019t apply. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now the draft Bill for the lifting of Dublin Airport\u2019s passenger cap has included a similar exemption,\u201d says O\u2019Gorman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are basically trying to neuter the Act which is probably the most important legislation we brought forward in our time in government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former minister and TD Ossian Smyth says it\u2019s not a Trumpian reverse or disruption, pointing to how the programme for government for the current Fianna F\u00e1il-Fine Gael retains many of the Green initiatives but says there is inertia when it comes to taking tough decisions on climate. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were in government with them, we were the active ingredient. We wrote so much policy that had a green agenda,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer minister Ossian Smyth. Photograph: Brian Lawless\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

He lists policies on public transport, safe routes to school, renewable energy, retrofitting, the protection of nature and decarbonisation.<\/p>\n

Once the Greens were gone, he argues, momentum dissipated. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no direction, and there\u2019s no enthusiasm, and they\u2019re kind of twisting in the wind. What they do is whatever is the most convenient thing that day for today\u2019s news item,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For O\u2019Gorman, the Greens\u2019 time in office did make a difference. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis Government is not going to be able to unpick everything. Not the reductions in public transport costs. Not the drive towards solar energy. They\u2019re actually looking to build on what we did in terms of offshore renewable wind energy,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He is concerned, he adds, to see some of the more challenging elements being \u201cignored\u201d.<\/p>\n

Looking in, from outside party politics, Diarmuid Torney, director of the DCU Institute for Climate and Society, detects a shift in tone. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s undeniable that climate has fallen way down the Government agenda,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

The programme for government contained high-level commitments, but \u201cwhen you drill down … it was really hard to see how the targets were going to be met\u201d.<\/p>\n

The absence of the Greens from the Government is telling, he argues, not only in policy delays but in narrative. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust at the higher level, the absence of a narrative around climate change \u2013 I\u2019m just not hearing it very much from the Government as a whole,” he says. <\/p>\n

During the last administration, he notes, the climate minister sat at the leaders\u2019 meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt really placed climate at the centre of decision-making in a way that it\u2019s just not there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"GreenGreen Party Dublin city councillor Janet Horner. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill<\/p>\n

Minister for Climate Darragh O\u2019Brien challenges that assertion, insisting climate is essential to everything this Government has done. <\/p>\n

He argus there were many examples such as enlargement of the retrofitting programme; the target for electric vehicles being exceeded in 2025; and major advances in the greening of energy through renewables such as solar, wind, biomethane, anaerobic digestion and district heating. <\/p>\n

\u201cI respect the Greens. I worked very closely with Eamon, and he did a lot of significant work that I want to accelerate,\u201d says O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re having a more honest discussion with people. I don\u2019t see us achieving the 2030 targets, but we\u2019re making significant progress. In the early 2030s, particularly with the electrification of our offshore wind resources that will be a significant step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green Dublin city councillor Janet Horner believes the party can rebuild. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear the Government is taking its foot off the pedal, with issues the Green Party championed being sidelined,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

The 2024 general election result, she says, was read by others as a signal that voters had lost interest. Yet she points to a strong local base. <\/p>\n

Smyth and O\u2019Gorman believe the Greens can return to government or influence it as soon as 2029, the year of the next scheduled general election. Horner is slightly more circumspect but believes the party can make strong gains that year.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Gorman insists the party can rebound. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re only one term away from recovery … we have got a really clear idea of how we want to make a better world, and we\u2019re sort of super enthusiastic to do those things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The big question for the Greens is whether their influence in one government term compensates for the following five or 10 years in the wilderness, when its priorities are marginalised. <\/p>\n

Diarmuid Torney, director of the DCU Institute for Climate and Society, observes the party has \u201ca kind of a kamikaze element to its approach: willing to prioritise climate and go in and do as much as they can \u2013 and then bear the consequence\u201d.<\/p>\n

To answer the question of whether this is the correct approach, Torney quotes the aphorism of former Progressive Democrats leader Mary Harney: \u201cYour worst day in government is better than your best day in opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Green Party can recover from 2024 election rout and regain seats, says Roderic O\u2019GormanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a telling scene from Neasa N\u00ed Chian\u00e1in\u2019s new fly-on-the-wall documentary, Forever is Now, which follows Eamon Ryan\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,37852,18,13,14,3428,18577,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,34887,7,8],"class_list":["post-360886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eamon-ryan","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-government","tag-green-party","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-roderic-o-gorman","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116148610390033973","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}