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CATHERINE MARTIN HAS ruled herself out of the race to replace outgoing Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.
She has also confirmed that she will step back as deputy leader of the party.
Eamon Ryan announced this afternoon that he was standing down as leader of the party and that he would not stand in the next general election.
In a lengthy statement shared on social media, Martin extended her “warm wishes and gratitude to Eamon for his dedicated leadership of the Green Party” and said he is “rightly regarded both in Ireland and well beyond as a trailblazing green leader”.
“It has been an honour and privilege to work closely with him as Deputy Leader of the Green Party over the past 13 years, during which time we collaborated with our grassroots membership in rebuilding the party.”
She said she was looking forward to “continuing to work with Eamon and my Parliamentary Party colleagues in playing our role in providing both stable and effective government”.
“At this point in time, I will not be putting myself forward for the Leadership contest. I will also step back as Deputy Leader,” she continued.
“I look forward to supporting the new leadership of the party. We are fortunate to have such an extremely talented party membership.”
The Arts and Media Minister added that she was focused on representing the people of Dublin Rathdown and confirmed that she would be standing in the next general election in her constituency.
“At a time of great uncertainty in the world, and with the growing impacts of the climate and biodiversity emergency, we need the creative solutions that come from working together – more than ever,” she concluded.
The Green Party lost half their council seats (going from 44 to 23) and both of their MEPs – Grace O’Sullivan and Ciarán Cuffe – in the recent local and European elections.
In his resignation statement, Ryan said he decided to step down “a good few months ago”, rather than after the recent election losses.
He said he will hand over to a “new generation” and that he believes the coalition government can go full term.
A leadership contest will now take place within the party, with sources tipping Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman to potentially take the role.
Attention has also turned to the candidates in the Green Party likely to vie for Ryan’s Dublin Bay South seat in the Dáil.
Among the potential runners are three Dublin candidates who performed well in the local elections – Claire Byrne, Hazel Chu and Carolyn Moore – all of who have seats in the Dublin Bay South constituency.
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No takers for the poisoned chalice?
@Brian Hunt: Yeah caring about the environment. What losers
@FoxyBoiiYT: caring about globalist communism mostly..
@Brian Hunt: O’ Gorman i’d say
@FoxyBoiiYT: not, it’s a tax-making con-job.
@FoxyBoiiYT: No green only in name.
@Brian Hunt: ryan knows he not get Elected ever again just like Gormley and jumping now is better than Embarrassing himself by failing to get Elected again . Greens destruction of this country with his bike lanes ect and very little bikes . BY BY GREENS
@Brian Hunt: cuff is looking for a new job. The time he wrote to the banks to urge them not to lend money to farmers will look good on his cv.
@Brian Hunt: might not be any chalice after general election
@Veronica: I think it’s going to be allocated to some Fas worker on a Community Employment Scheme .
@Veronica: He has a lot to do with it!
@FoxyBoiiYT: are you sure they do? Do they not just care about being in government and appearing to be green, but just to let most people down. Hence a poor performance the other week, also those posters aren’t very green so if they’re really for championing the environment maybe they should have refused to put them up
Be finally a badly needed push for those posters that aren’t seen like that anywhere else in Europe. In Italy and France, the posters have to have A BLOODY POINT to do with policy and not just be a big pic of someone’s head
@Larry O Reilly: FFG out for repeated socio economic disasters and record homelessness. Need manners put on them asap following the locals.
@Jimmy Wallace: Where’s he going to park his Landrover now?
@Seamus:Really, the two are separate and completely different, like a left wing fascist makes no sense neither does your post!
Globalist,
a person who advocates the interpretation or planning of economic and foreign policy in relation to events and developments throughout the world.
Communism,
a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.
@FoxyBoiiYT: We all care about the environment but how you talk to people and not at them, helps. Listening to people, who can afford the EVs and the heat pumps, lecture people living under the poverty line that they have to do this that and the other, took its tool.
They were once a party of the people, but they left most of those people behind.
@S Suilleabhain: still crying about the battering you shinners got lol
@Gary Kearney: see “Stakeholder Capitalism”.
Greens are bought in.
@John D Doe: such a battering that assuming I was SF, id not be that unhappy since Sf went up 23 seats ???
Hopefully, obliteration of the ‘green’ party.
Maybe their finally getting the message ?
The public has enough of la la land.
The people at RTE ran rings around her. I’m not sure she would inspire confidence as a leader.
…this day just keeps getting better. First Eamon, now Catherine. :)
@John Moylan: Wodwick needs to go. Hat trick
That’s good news Please no more bike lanes for the City
@David Dawson: More cities full of fumes. Let’s get the smog back.
@Sal Paradise: I’ve no problem with bike lanes whatsoever but in my area they put bike lanes in places and then coming up to major junctions, instead of two lanes at the junctions now they are 1 and 1 bike lane that is hardly used. The difference this makes to traffic congestion in my area is phenomenal, there’s constant traffic now where there was none before and just bike lanes that you see the odd person using. It beggars belief the logic behind some of their placements
@Sal Paradise: Completely different issue but by all means sow confusion! Smog will never be back in Dublin, No Smokey coal!
Running for the hills.
Cycle lanes along waking ways and electric bikes and scooters that already killed someone waking. , I wonder why their running for thier money.
@Robert Halvey: are you sure? I’ve heard that usually the wake is after you’re dead.
#greenmeltdown
If there ever was a poster child for utter incompetence, well take a look at the individual at the top of this article. Pathetic the way she handled the RTE fallout. This and similar criticism is deserved. They represent people and are paid with the peoples money, so when you perform so abysmally, you ultimately deserve this criticism.
All heading out the gap with a gold watch and a juicy fat wallet compliments of the taxpayer…
Up the Kerry and Mayo turf-cutters.
Rats deserting the sinking ship. We care about the country lol.
“Green” party is an obselete concept in the modern world…. A green agenda is needed by all parties and most already have one.
@Ben dover: the green agenda is a scam, predicated on junk science and fake ‘modelling’ that has a record of being completely incorrect, intended to part citizens from their money and freedom.
The green attack on farming is bizarre and anti-human in the extreme.
Their real agenda is global communism.
Communism always ends the same way.
@Seamus: Just wondering – your own scientific qualification to comment thus is from where exactly?
@Dublin Doll: he’s right …..who ate the scientists eh. They should be on the news like Tony holohan
@Seamus: this comment is so obviously untrue that it makes me believe it is a bot.
Bad time for her to want to lead. She will sit back and wait until the numbers improve. Let some other vegetable take over the loonies for now
It’s a pity a Green party is even needed. All parties should have a green agenda to a significant degree at this point. We have to move in that direction regardless. Lobby groups have their nails dug into FFG and will likely delay the progress that’s required.
@ecrowley ecrowley: the green agenda is a scam; we don’t have to move in that direction at all.
It’s time to get back to reality, stop impoverishing citizens and strangling farmers and small businesses with punitive and pointless green ‘measures’ and stop pissing away taxpayers’ money on green ‘initiatives’ that nobody wants.
@Seamus: The green agenda is tied closely with climate change. Whatever about loads of bleedin bicycle lanes etc climate change needs to be addressed.
@Seamus: Absolutely: we need to stop investing in public transport and supporting people to improve their homes and have cheaper bills and produce their own electicity. What a waste of taxpayers’ money!
@ecrowley ecrowley: climate change needs to be ‘addressed’ only insofar as humans needs to adapt to it.
Climate change is not caused by human activity; it is entirely natural and cyclic. CO2 has nothing to do with global warming and only ~3% of atmospheric CO2 derives from human activity.
CO2 is plant food; increases in atmospheric concentration lead to increased crop yields; conversely, insane ‘net zero’ policies will lead to famine (never mind bananas attacks on agriculture).
It’s a massive scam, intended to transfer wealth from ordinary people to hyper wealthy scammers and introduce increasingly restrictive control on their movement and choices.
Get the Green’s out now . Gormley and Ryan screwed the country back in 2010 .let’s see who’s going next . Catherine Martin and RTE . There will be no Green’s party after next general election .
Is Eamonn donating his Pension to the greens
More great news
Ryan’s main achievement was destroying the country ..stopped oil and gas exploration which we need in the real world .destroyed transport with bicycle lanes and non functioning electric buses .attempted to destroy aviation and tourism and then suggested we eat the contents of our window boxes …he must be well proud of himself. sad thing is it all happened on the back of micheal Martins obsession to be taoiseach who gave him any ministry he wanted …
@William O leary: His arrogance at appointing over 10 Advisors, paid for by us the Taxpayer, displayed a massive contempt for Taxpayers. For someone with so many Advisors, the guy was an absolute car crash & his Dept was the worst performing of all Depts at Cabinet level. His legacy will not be a Green one, but one that showed that he & his party destroyed the State, punished workers & are the cause of massive societal breakdown in Ireland. We need an election now, rather than allowing this incompetent pull many strokes till he is booted out.
If O’Gorman takes charge they will be mauled
Up Ryanair. Mikey will be pleased. I read recently that the combined total carbon emissions of Ryanair planes is greater than the emissions of all of Germany’s industry. No lie – I read it on Facebook.
@Max: Well if it is on Facebook, it must be true. Is there a TickTock video to back it up as if there is , then it is a gold plated fact!
Can anybody tell me of one positive contribution or incentive that Eamonn Ryan has introduced during his time in office that has made things better for the average working taxpayer in our country.
Incompetent as a Minister, a hypocrite who insisted on flying Business Class, whilst lecturing the rest of us. The RTE fiasco, still ongoing, showed how truly incompetent she was. As for replacements, Pippa Hackett who wasn’t even elected by the people, yet was appointed a Super Junior Minister. Then you have Ossian Smith & his Bottle Return scheme, which he handed to the Millionaire Drinks Industry, he couldn’t even answer questions on the scheme in the Dail. Lastly the man who has done massive damage to this Country, Roderic O Gorman. His tweet in 8 different languages that targeted 118 countries, welcoming Immigrants & promising them own door accommodation within months, this has led to the massive influx of people from around the world & will cost the State Billions.
Well she’s made that clear, and I doubt she will be accused of talking out both sides of her mouth.
Some people here will prefer the people or parties they don’t like to simple disappear. That’s not good for democracy, not good for us. The online abuse is taking a toll and really, really this is not good news.
@Chris: sounds almost as though you might be supportive of the introduction of new laws to prevent people saying nasty things online?
@Chris: Criticism on their failures is not online abuse, it’s an attempt to control the narrative & prevent any deserved criticism of their failures. The people also gave their opinion also in the Local & European elections & showed them what they thought of them, maybe the Electorate are abusing them now as well.
Calling out the environmental issues that we are facing into is not popular. Al Gore’s documentary from over 20 years ago ‘an inconvenient truth’ said it all as that’s what it is. There is cost involved in not wrecking the planet and too much money to be made in destroying it. That said I don’t think the greens do themselves and favours sometimes focusing on small petty stuff that annoys people rather than the bigger picture.
All throwing in the towel.
Not a great endorsement for the green party.
Because she’s useless and mismanaged RTE
@James Ryan: I think RTE has probably been mis-managed by all sorts of Ministers for quite some time
The 0.4% right wing will be foaming at the mouth if Roderic O’Gorman is the new leader
@denis silver: Welease Woderwic.
@Paul Rudd: now another article today is on behaviour to do with politicians. Well o Gorman during the last year or so was repeatedly asked politely and in a non aggressive manner why certain things are being done and policy drafted about issues that, if asked the Irish wouldn’t give their consent and while I think it’s very sad that groups have since protested at his home, he completely ignored those people cos he’s a coward like Mcentee. A lot of people are angry, especially about 70% of our legislation made up of EU legislation which treats our people like they are irrelevant. Sadly a minority will act by potentially breaking the law and harassing
@Paul Rudd: O’Groomer? Stay classy
She fairly sorted out RTE didn’t she ….. said nobody ever.
If she’s no standing, then the possibility is that her husband will put his name forward.
They all know something that you don’t and they’re all running for the door.
It’s their own fault. They shouldn’t have listened to bad advice from bad actors.
All they had to do was talk to the person they should have spoken to on day one.
The problem with living in sin is that it doesn’t go away, it only sprawls, it infects everything it touches.
The people will blame everyone and anyone for hiding that sin and this time heads will roll. #Not my fault. Thats a you problem not a me problem.
The news gets better and better
I feel his heart was in the right place, but he went off the right track many years ago.
To target the lowest paid and most vulnerable (carbon tax) in society repeatedly with taxes is never going to build a green movement.
It’s well documented that the green policies heavily benefitted the wealthy – grants for energy upgrades only paid after the job is done, grants for electric cars & installation of car chargers, no tax for aviation fuel or no ban on private planes.
I feel sorry for his dozen advisers
Varadka has jumped, now Ryan and his Deputy has jumped, isn’t it time that Auld creep Micheal jumped as well??. He has not only destroyed the FF party but allowed Ryan and his followers on 4% destroy the country . To hell with the lot of them .
In times of peace and prosperity, the greens will always do well .. but when war and the business of real problems come to bare they are forgotten about and will be decimated in the next election.. all now jumping from the sinking ship
Congrats to him
Well, she was fairly useless. So who cares?
Please don’t let the Greens see the comments to this article. Their embarrassment will be difficult to hide.
why climb at all ..if you dont reach the top…silly silly
She was useless at her job anyway.
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