O’Gorman elected as Green Party leader

Dublin West TD Roderic O’Gorman has been named as the new leader of the Green Party.

The Castleknock man saw off competition from Mayo Senator Pippa Hackett by 984 votes to her 918, or 52% to her 48%.

55.4% of Green Party members turned out for the leadership campaign, the first since 2020 when Eamon Ryan saw off Catherine Martin by less than 50 votes.

O’Gorman’s 66 vote margin of victory indicates the party is still relatively divided, as O’Gorman has made a pitch of wanting to keep the Greens as a broad centre-left party (during the campaign, he said he was looking to begin talks with Labour and the Social Democrats after the next general election) and keep the party as a strong Dublin-based party while Hackett campaigned on making the Greens more appealing to rural voters.

O’Gorman’s victory means that each Green Party leader has hailed from Dublin, following in the footsteps of Trevor Sergent and Eamon Ryan, who stepped down following poor local election results in June.

June was a bruising affair for the Greens, with the party losing both of their MEPS in Ciaran Cuffe and Grace O’Sullivan, being wiped out on South Dublin County Council, and being reduced to just one seat on Fingal County Council.

In O’Gorman’s former local constituency of Castleknock, the Green vote went from 27% in 2019 when O’Gorman was elected to 7%.

Likewise, a decision made by the party to pull out of a progressive alliance on Dublin City Council consisting of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and Labour was similarly criticised.

The results of the deputy leadership campaign will be announced on Saturday, with Dublin Central TD Neasa Hourigan, Senator Roisin Garvey and Dún Laoghaire Ossian Smyth in contention for the role.

Under party rules, a leadership vote must happen within 3 months of a general election meaning that Green Party members will be back at the polls within the next 9 months.

In his victory speech, O’Gorman said he wanted to see the current government see out the full 5 years in office and only go to the polls in March 2025.