A popular quote from Karl Marx goes “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
The Green Party are now picking up the pieces from their second electoral wipeout after taking part in a coalition.
In 2011, voters gave the Greens the boot after being part of the Fianna Fáil government that oversaw the 2008 economic crash, reducing them to zero seats, and in 2024, the party went from 12 seats to just one after propping up a grand coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
The warning signs were there for the Greens in June after the party lost both of their European Parliament seats, were entirely wiped out on South Dublin County Council and were reduced to one seat on Fingal County Council.
While the Social Democrats and Labour never looked back after a strong set of results in June, the Greens only went into reverse.
The Greens being reduced to one seat was a combination of factors; the Social Democrats and Labour having more chops on environmental and transport issues in their manifestos, backing unpopular government measures such as voting to lift the eviction ban in 2023 and ultimately, the party being blamed for every ill in Irish society.
The loss of Neasa Hourigan’s seat to Labour’s Marie Sherlock and Joe O’Brien’s seat to Labour’s Robert O’Donoghue on the Northside and the loss of Patrick Costello’s seat to the Social Democrats’ Jen Cummins and Catherine Martin losing her seat to Sineád Gibney of the Social Democrats on the Southside are perfect encapsulations of why the Greens lost so badly; their voter base from 2019 and 2020 simply upped sticks.
The Greens were swept into power in 2020 off the back of the Friday For Futures movement and the likes of Greta Thunberg bringing climate issues to the top of voters’ minds.
Across Europe, Green parties that went into government in the likes of Austria and Finland were subsequently turfed out at the following election, while the Greens that went into government in Germany and Scotland have also seen declining poll numbers.
It would be disingenuous to say that voters don’t care about climate issues; the fact of the matter is that Labour and the Social Democrats were much more coherent on climate as well as public transport issues.
In the German Green Party, the party is split between “Realos”, more pragmatic types who will prop up the government of the day in exchange for some minor, incremental gains on environmental issues and “Fundis” who are more in tune with the left-wing environment that spawned the green movement in the late 1960s.
Closer to home, our Green Party had this split with the likes of Neasa Hourigan, Hazel Chu, Patrick Costello and Catherine Martin representing the “Fundi” side of the party; left-wing on social issues, can and will drive a hard bargain to get genuinely progressive policies over the line.
Both Hourigan and Costello lost the party whip over the course of the last government for voting against the party on certain issues, most notably the lifting of the eviction ban in 2023 and were both suspended in 2022 for abstaining on a Sinn Féin motion to put the National Maternity Hospital on public land.
However, the Greens consistently backed the government in all key votes, notably voting along with the government to not expel the Israeli ambassador in November 2023 and voting with the government to not pay student nurses at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hourigan lost her seat to Labour’s Marie Sherlock following a spirited campaign by the Senator and Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon increasing his share of the vote by 4% compared to 2020 (9.3% was bumped up to 13.3%).
Hourigan’s vote dropped down to 6% from her 12.3% win in 2020 while Sherlock secured 7.4% of first preferences compared to Labour’s 5.4% haul in 2020.
Eoin Hayes’ upset victory in Dublin Bay South (prior to the Palantir scandal taking the bloom off the rose) in the backyard of former leader Eamon Ryan, is also an example of how it went horribly wrong for the Greens.
Councillor Hazel Chu inherited a 22.4% haul from Eamon Ryan in 2020; in November, that dropped to 8.1%.
The Social Democrats went from 3% to 9%, enough to put Hayes in contention early doors, while Labour’s Ivana Bacik nearly doubling Labour’s performance in the seat, with her 14.2% haul massively improving on the 7.9% haul in 2020.
The bitter irony for the Greens is that the two government parties they supported – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael – have been rewarded while the Greens have been left in the dust.
Whenever a vaguely contentious environmental issue made the headlines in recent years, it was blamed on the Greens.
The Dáil bike shed? Blamed on the Greens (despite a Fine Gael minister signing off on it).
The closure of peat-fired power stations? Blamed on the Greens (despite Fine Gael signing off on it in December 2019, when the Greens weren’t in government).
The passenger cap at Dublin Airport row? Blamed on the Greens (despite it being a decision of Fingal County Council to make, not the central government).
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael walking off into the sunset while the Greens try to rebuild with just one TD and 24 councillors is the latest example of the simplest rule in politics; the junior partner always gets punished.
The Progressive Democrats in 2007, Germany’s Free Democratic Party in 2013, the UK’s Liberal Democrats in 2015, Irish Labour in 2016, the Austrian Greens in 2019 – these are all examples both at home and aboard of the junior partner getting the short end of the stick.
Leader Roderic O’Gorman has stated that history will vindicate the Greens’ most recent stint in government and that he has “no regrets.”
“That’s politics,” he told reporters in his constituency of Dublin West, where he narrowly held onto the final seat following a titanic battle with Labour, Aontú and the Social Democrats.
Whatever O’Gorman does next (after being subject to a vote by party members if he should stay on or not) will be crucial to determining the future of the party.
After the 2011 electoral wipeout, former TD and MEP Ciáran Cuffe said teaming up with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats was a “Faustian pact.”
Then-leader John Gormely said something in 2011 that you’re probably going to hear Roderic O’Gorman say in 2024, almost word for word.
“’We have suffered a major defeat, but the party will regroup. We will continue. We’re a party with a set of beliefs and values and a vision for the future’.
O’Gorman knows that his party has been in this position before; the question is, can they stage a second comeback.