Dublin West TD Roderic O’Gorman has been elected as the new leader of the Green Party.
The Dublin 15 native succeeded Eamon Ryan as party leader following a poor set of election results for the Greens in June’s local and European elections.
O’Gorman’s appointment comes at a crossroads for the Greens, but O’Gorman said he was open to the possibility of joining forces with Labour and the Social Democrats following the next general election to build a broad centre-left alliance.
The party lost both of its MEPS – Ciáran Cuffe and Grace O’Sullivan – on a bruising day for the party that also saw them drop from five councillors to just one on Fingal County Council.
On Dublin City Council, the 2019 breakthrough year also failed to replicate itself as party lost two seats, while the party was entirely wiped out on South Dublin County Council.
O’Gorman’s comments hinting at deeper co-operation with the parties that are nipping at the Greens’ heels indicate a change in tone from the Eamon Ryan days, where steely pragmatism won out over wide-eyed idealism and saw them join up with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in coalition.
In an interview published in an Irish version of The Times during the leadership election, O’Gorman was quoted as saying “I would like to see the parties of the centre-left, parties who are willing to take on the responsibility and the risks of going into government, to come together.”
He said the agreement would be based on an “agreed set of principles that can be hammered out and use that, and use the strength of those greater numbers to secure a very strong programme for government from other political parties.”
The combined vote share of Labour, the Greens and the Social Democrats in June’s local elections reached 12.3% nationally, more than Sinn Féin’s 11.8%.
On Dublin City Council, the combined vote share of the three parties hit 27.2%, enough for 22 seats.
On Fingal County Council, where O’Gorman served as a councillor between 2014 and 2020, the parties would have a combined vote share of 26.6%.
More recently, a combination of parties across the French left, ranging from hard-left, traditional centre-left social democrats, Green parties and anti-capitalists, joined forces to unexpectedly win the second round of parliamentary elections.
O’Gorman can be seen as a combination of the fundamentalist wing of the Green party which is more left-wing in its approach to tackling climate change and taking a strong stance on social issues and the more pragmatic wing of the party that is willing to enter into a coalition with parties traditionally opposed to the Green viewpoint in order to effect change.
O’Gorman was first elected as a TD in the 2020 general election which saw the best-ever results for the party at a general election, winning 12 seats in the process (eight of which are in Dublin).
O’Gorman’s victory in 2020 came at the expense of former Tánaiste and Labour TD Joan Burton as well as Solidarity TD (and recently re-elected councillor) Ruth Coppinger.
A rare feat for a first-time TD, O’Gorman was made a member of Cabinet following his election to the Dáil, being made Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and the Youth.
The integration part of his brief has become the defining element of O’Gorman’s time as Minister.
To his left, O’Gorman has been criticised for being sluggish in fulfilling the Green Party election manifesto promise of ending Direct Provision and to his right, he has been accused of being out of his depth in handling the Ukranian refugee crisis.
In February 2021, his department published a White Paper to end Direct Provision but the reform of the system has been delayed owing to the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war.
RTÉ reported that the White Paper to end Direct Provision was drafted over a number of years, before the department claimed that global factors upended the process.
A new system for International Protection applicants was presented to Cabinet in March by O’Gorman, and denied that the new plan was Direct Provision by another name.
The new system proposed by O’Gorman’s department would look to end the current government practice of using unsuitable accommodation for International Protection applicants and increase the number of beds provided by the government to applicants.
His handling of the Ukraine issue has also drawn criticism to his right, with O’Gorman the most prominent government face as Ireland took in over 100,000 refugees.
The tightening of rules surrounding Ukrainian immigrants by the government, along with comments from O’Gorman in January stating that Ukrainian refugees in Ireland should be encouraged to return, can be interpreted as O’Gorman looking to face down his critics to his right.
In O’Gorman’s former local constituency of Castleknock, the Green vote went from 27% in 2019 to 7% in June’s local elections which can be read that Green voters in his own patch are displeased with him.
O’Gorman and fellow Dublin West TD Leo Varadkar were the two most prominent government figures who pushed for a Yes-Yes vote in March’s ill-fated referendums.
Speaking ahead of the referendums, O’Gorman said that progressives of all stripes should vote Yes in the referendums.
He said in January “any person or organisation that sees itself as progressive and as wanting to advance progressive change would have to explain why they do not support the plans.”
In Dublin West, the Family amendment was rejected by 63% to 37% while the Care amendment was rejected by 71% to 29%.
O’Gorman saw off competition from Mayo Senator Pippa Hackett to win the leadership race, winning by 52% to 48%.
In her campaign, Hackket said she was running to help dispel the notion that the Greens were predominantly a Dublin-based party.
To her point, eight of the party’s 12 TDs are from Dublin constituencies, and following the local elections, in which they lost half of their councillors compared to 2019, 15 of the Greens’ 23 councillors nationwide are now based in Dublin.
Dublin Central TD Neasa Hourigan fell short in her bid to become deputy leader, losing to Clare Senator Róisin Garvey.
Hourigan, widely considered to be on the left-wing of the Green Party and has often gone against the party in numerous votes leading to her suspension, lost out by eight votes to Garvey.
With Dublin West and Dublin Central being next door to each other on a Dáil level, regional balance was perhaps crucial for the Greens heading into election season outside the Pale.
Green Party rules state that a leadership election must be held within six months of a general election, but only if candidates feel the need to contest the leader.
With current polling and June’s local results showing that the Green wave of 2019 and 2020 has now abated, O’Gorman now has a great weight of responsibility on his shoulders.
The realities of governing for Green parties have taken their toll on their cousins in Germany, Austria and Finland as their roots as anti-nuclear, New Left Movements have struggled to match the cold light of contemporary Europe.
O’Gorman was quick to congratulate the Green Party in the UK for their record 4-seat haul in the recent general election, but the subtext is that the Greens across the Irish Sea had a successful election campaign as a result of significant dissatisfaction among British Labour’s left flank.
The Greens held a similar role in Ireland in 2007 and 2020 general election outings, but that vote has now firmly settled elsewhere in the Irish electorate.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, in his calls for a left-wing alliance at the next general election, has pointedly not included Labour and the Greens in his wishlist and made a prediction about the make-up of the next Irish government.
He predicted that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would “ditch the Greens for right-wing independents” when it came time to form the next government.