Former Green Party leader opens up about ‘being attacked from all sides’ and party’s general election wipeout
Former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan says that despite the lack of support for his party in the last general election, 'the vast majority of European people want to see climate taken seriously'. Photograph: Stephen Collins/Collins Photosof Ryanair ’s wish for the Greens to be “weeded out” is not going to happen because the party is already growing back stronger.Ryan’s swansong did not hit high notes.
It was a convenient trope to portray the Greens as being anti-rural. I think in hindsight, maybe, we should kick back a bit more and say, ‘hold on a sec, this is absolute rubbish’ “That will turn, unfortunately, because the issues aren’t going to go away. In 2011 we had zero money. We were running on vapours for five years. I remember, literally the fuel gauge was at the E for the entire time. I think, ‘Jesus, we get to next week’, whereas we have public funding this time and Oireachtas representation. That’s a very different place to be come back from,” he says.
“But if there’s a sense that if Europe, or any government, is really abandoning the ambition that’s needed, and not addressing the issue, that that silent majority will come back all the stronger.”On former Green TD Marc Ó Cathasaigh’s assertion they did the work but got the communications wrong, Ryan says he doesn’t believe that means having to change the message, “but some things might be different”.
Although he was portrayed almost as a hate figure, he says he didn’t take it personally, though maybe he should have kicked back more at times. “It was a convenient trope to portray the Greens as being anti-rural. I think in hindsight, maybe, we should kick back a bit more, and say, ‘hold on a sec, this is absolute rubbish’.” At the time he reasoned that would have meat letting others dictate the agenda: “And I felt, just speak your truth and don’t be reactive,” he says.
“The scale of the next change is incredibly challenging, because you really are going to the Nth degree,” says Ryan, who believes Europe will still commit to a 90 per cent cut because its economic situation is imperilled. “We were experienced, because we had been in government before. We had a lot of public support. We did well in the election, and we were really prepared.”“We had a good budget situation, and we were able to deliver real change ... the start of transformation which is real in energy particularly, but also in agriculture and transport, which are three big areas we need to change,” he says.
His most challenging time in government was in the summer of 2023. The Coalition realised they were “going to have this big corporate tax surplus”, and agreed much of it needed to be put away to avoid overheating the economy.
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