Greens used to ‘sniping’ from coalition partners, O’Gorman says

By Cillian Sherlock, PA

The Greens have dealt with “sniping” every day for four-and-a-half years in Government, their party leader has said.

Roderic O’Gorman made the remark as he reflected on the “large impact” the Green Party played in the Coalition ahead of the election.

Taoiseach Simon Harris announced on Wednesday that he would seek a dissolution of the Dáil on Friday, formally starting the election campaign before polling day on November 29th.

Mr O’Gorman revealed he had been informed of Mr Harris’s decision to announce the election date publicly just 10-15 minutes before the broadcast interview. The Green leader had previously put forward November 29th as his preferred date for the vote.

He said: “I'm pleased the Taoiseach agreed with me in terms of the 29th being better than allowing it to be December.

“The Taoiseach’s chief of staff informed our own chief of staff last night just before he went on the Six One news that he was going to announce the dissolution of the Dáil.”

When questioned on whether Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin had been informed hours earlier, Mr O’Gorman said: “I don’t know, did the Tánaiste know or did he make an educated guess but that’s when I found out.”

Mr O’Gorman said he had “much bigger things to worry about” than be concerned about when he was informed.

“To be honest, that’s old news now – we’re all much more focused on getting out and speaking to people.”

Addressing how Greens would deal with expected criticism from their coalition colleagues Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil during the campaign, Mr O’Gorman said: “Well, we’ve dealt with sniping every day across the last four-and-a-half years and we’ve still delivered key parts of our programme for Government, key parts of our manifesto.”

He added: “The polls as they stand now do suggest the two major parties (Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil) will be back in the next Government.

“I think if it’s a Government just made up of them or maybe topped up with a few Independents, I think would be a very different government to the one we just had over the last four-and-a-half years – we won’t see those innovative policies in terms of climate, helping families and public transport.”

Mr O’Gorman was speaking to reporters in Dublin about his party’s upcoming election campaign.

He said: “We may have been the smallest party in Government, but we had the largest impact in terms of policy.

“We delivered in climate in terms of having the lowest level of emissions in the last 30 years while not impacting economic growth, we delivered on nature with new national parks and nature restoration across Europe, and we’ve delivered the help that families need in halving the cost of child care, free public transport for young children, free GP appointments.”