The Demise of the Irish Green Party
The dust is yet to settle on the 2024 General Election, as the vote continues at pace, with the outcome still up-in-the-air at the time of publication.
However, amongst the many stories that have played out over recent days, the demise of the Green Party has been one of the most striking. The party that secured 12 seats during the 2020 election are currently facing the prospect of, perhaps, only retaining a single seat this time round – at least that’s the case at the time of publication.
That single seat belonging to the Party’s leader, Roderic O’Gorman, who only secured it on the thirteenth count in Dublin West.
While the decline of the Green Party may not come as a surprise in itself, it is vitally important that the party understands why, and that we all reflect on the loss of the Green Party at the most critical time for climate action.
Propping Up Failure
Why did the Greens lose?
As with any question of this magnitude, there are myriad answers, but there is one that stands out from the rest: They were part of a Government that utterly failed to tackle the Climate Emergency.
Yes, the Greens may have pushed through cycle infrastructure, solar for schools and other actions that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have utter disinterest and distain for. But on the metric that matters most – greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – the Greens were part of a Government that has overseen record emissions and missed opportunities at every turn.
At various points during the coalitions tenure, Ireland had the highest GHG emission increase in the EU, and their failure to act in line with legally-binding emissions targets means that Ireland is on course for a best-case reduction in GHGs of 29% - a total catastrophe compared to the 51% pledged.
As a result, Ireland faces annual fines of €8bn per year for non-compliance.
Despite implementing the first clean air strategy in the State’s history, the coalition is not compliant on a single GHG and the number of people who die annually from air pollution has risen from 1,300 to 1,400.
The Greens cannot hide from the fact that they were part of this failure.
2024 will be the first year to exceed 1.5°C, but not the last. In order to avert runaway climate breakdown, swift action is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to maintain a liveable world for all. The outgoing Irish Government was on course to reduce GHGs by 29% rather than the legally-binding 51%. Credit: IPCC
Climate Scapegoat
Of course, they shouldn’t take all the blame. After all, it is inherently clear that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil do not care about the Climate Emergency – that was evident not only from their 2024 manifestos, but from their decades in power where they have done nothing to change course.
They are the parties of big business and profiting from climate destruction.
The Greens will argue that they provided checks and balances to the other two coalition members, and that may be true in many instances. They have pushed hard-fought legislation through that simply would not have happened otherwise. They have made the Climate Emergency a prominent issue during a time of growing culture wars.
In the weeks leading up to the election, many party members were vocal about the fact that action would not have been taken without them being present.
The Green Party waited until the election campaign was underway to call out their coalition partners for inaction on the Climate Emergency. Credit: Twitter/Irish Green Party
Speaking of the Climate, Nature and Infrastructure Fund, Senator Pauline O’Reilly said of the other two coalition members: “They had to be dragged howling, kicking and screaming into doing it, and that’s a fact.”
And, for many would-be Green voters, this is a central issue on why they chose not to nominate Green TDs again.
The Greens have provided an easy scapegoat to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Every time a climate question has come up, the other two parties have batted away the question and deferred to the Greens. The don’t need to care, because the Greens are they and, more importantly, they aren’t accountable because the Greens were there.
Without the Greens in the coalition, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would have been left more exposed to questions from Irish voters and the Irish media about their continued and constant failure to act on the Climate Emergency.
There was a pivotal point as the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions eased that the Green Party could have stepped up, been vocal and threatened to quit the coalition.
They could have called out Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for their disinterest and denial, but they didn’t.
Instead, they chose to fall ever more in line with the other two parties so that they could push through the bare minimum in terms of climate action.
Power Over Values
Nowhere could this be clearer than in the Green’s suspension of Neasa Hourigan on two occasions.
In March 2023 the Green Party suspended her for voting against the lifting of the eviction ban – a neoliberal policy that only served landlords and made the vulnerable in Ireland even more vulnerable.
Again, back in 2022, Hourigan was suspended alongside her colleague Patrick Costello for voting in favour of the National Maternity Hospital being fully publicly owned and run, and on publicly-owned land. A hospital that is more than €2.2bn over budget and which is not due to open until mid-2025 if further setbacks aren’t announced.
When Hourigan was suspended in 2022, the Green Party issued a statement which said: “The parliamentary party regrets having to take these steps but believes that effectiveness in government relies on unity in every vote.”
This sentiment was echoed by Green Party minister Ossian Smyth: “It destabilises a government if a party member votes against a government.”
There it is. In black and white.
The Green Party is complicit not only in every action and failure of the coalition, but in placing power over its ethics.
Not only have the Greens failed to act on their core principles of cutting emissions, but they have also failed to act on other just transition issues including energy poverty, EV uptake, data centre energy and water use, and the creation of infrastructure for new fossil fuels – namely LNG.
At this point, can you name what the Green Party stands for, and is there any evidence to support that they will follow through on it?
If the Green Party are the fourth most progressive party when it comes to crucial forms of climate action and climate justice, what is the point of them? That seems to be the message that voters have sent during Election 2024. Credit: Not Here Not Anywhere
Frankly, the second that Eamon Ryan rolled back on his support for the reintroduction of wolves in Ireland, the party has continually betrayed its core values. What did potential Green voters have to vote for?
Is it any wonder that they ranked third in Friends of the Earth’s pre-election grading, securing only a B grade? Or that Not Here Not Anywhere ranked them fourth in their Climate Red Lines grading?
The Green Party’s tenure in Government has been a series of incidents where it has shot itself in the foot, but perhaps none more so than increasingly making enemies of other left/left-learning parties that prioritise climate action.
We saw just how critical a left coalition was in the French national elections in order to keep out the far-right – a growing issue here in Ireland too – but the Greens seem to have done all they can to make enemies of Labour, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit while cosying up to the same parties that scapegoat and bully it.
It has, at times, felt like a turf war where the Greens have tried to claim sole ownership over climate action, rather than seeking support and collaboration from potential allies to achieve a great outcome for the people of Ireland.
By every major metric, the Green Party have not delivered what they promised, and they no longer represent the urgent climate action - or climate justice - that Ireland needs. Credit: Irish Friends of the Earth
Climate Consequences
Ireland is one of Europe’s worst climate laggards, and we are poorer for not having a strong, progressive and committed Green Party in power.
We have just a handful of years until the global carbon budget expires, millions are already dying and billions more face displacement over the coming decades unless a miraculous reduction in emissions can be achieved.
The people of Ireland deserve a Green Party that fights for a just transition and which doesn’t bottle it, become embroiled in culture wars, or allow itself to be bullied by the bigger boys.
The results of Election 2024 will sting for the Green Party – particularly at a time when green parties across Europe have seen record successes. It has lost hard. And, to some extent, it deserved the wake-up call that it will hopefully heed.
This is an opportunity for the Party to hold its hands up, to recognise its many failings, to reprioritise on the key tenets for future action, and to come back stronger and more collaborative.
That is the only way to win back the trust of all those who feel betrayed and elected not to give their vote to the Greens during the most critical time for climate action that Ireland or the world has ever known.
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