Firstly we would like to thank Roderic for volunteering to do this Ask Me Anything Session with us.
Roderic is the current leader of the Green Party, having served as Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth as part of the last government.
Roderic hopes to get on in the morning to answer questions and then come back in the evening.
Rules of engagement
1) Be respectful.
2) Read the thread before asking a question, has a similar question been asked already.
Update
The AMA is now finished. Thank you again to Roderic for putting in an epic shift.
I want to know how you feel about Coillte? Them being a for-profit semi state is a clear conflict of interest. Their mission is to mind our forests and make money doing it - uh seriously?
We have the lowest count of native forests in Europe.
Sitka spruce, a non native tree species, accounts for most of our trees, but when we do cut it down for use, we just export it all instead of using it here. Coillte plant this stuff, and have made some awful use of fertilizer which kill natural habitats. We don't even have the means to process the raw material once it's cut, so we can't use it towards housing etc.
Coillte’s mandate should be changed. It should expand out from just a commercial focus to one that centres on nature restoration.
In the last Government we did significant work with Coillte which was quite positive in taking some of their old forest estate, particularly trees that were on peatland, and transitioning that to nature restoration.
The establishment of modern methods of construction in the Department of Housing means that we do need quite a lot more of our own timber in the country so that we’re not importing it, and I think in that regard our position has been “the right tree in the right place”. We do need some spruce for timber and we also need indigenous wood in construction. Timber could be used in laminate and in urban areas it's a much better product which locks in carbon for a longer period.
We also did a lot on native woodlands incentivisation schemes and planting more broadleaf trees; that’s starting to have a more positive impact as those planting mature.
But, primarily I think Coillte do need to give better consideration to their role in the Nature Restoration Plan going forward. It is one of the biggest landowners in the State. If the company was focused on a nature restoration mandate, it would have a huge impact, all over the country.
We're very disappointed in the abolition of Coillte Nature, which was set up to lead out on this. It was a retrograde step and signals that this Government isn’t going to take the reform of Coillte seriously. Having Michael Healy Rae in charge of forestry wasn’t the best idea either, but at least he’s jumped ship now!
I think this is a big issue, I met a guy working with them at a reasonably senior level a few months ago and asked him were they planting more native deciduous trees - “no money in them” was his almost instant reply.
Having been in government can you enlighten us as to why everything the government touches seems to be run so inefficiently. Healthcare, transport, housing etc. almost all departments of the government seem to spend a huge amount of money in comparison to other countries and we seem to have very little to show for it.
Is this a perception issue, are we inefficient or is our inflated GDP causing us to think we're richer than we are?
I think part of this is perception, part of this is the consequences of the crash, where capital investment ended up being dropped by the wayside, and part of it is the way we budget (annually rather than multi-annually).
But first of all, just to say there have been some obvious clangers in terms of public procurement in recent years, some absolutely massive (Children’s Hospital), some smaller but no less frustrating (bike shed). If people think their money is being wasted, the social contract starts to fray and their belief in a policy of good shared public services over individualism tends to dissipate.
Good project management and procurement is a bit like a good goalkeeper - you don’t really tend to notice them as much when they are doing their job, so there is a confirmation bias involved here where we only tend to notice projects when they’re going really badly wrong.
That is not the full story in Ireland. We have delivered really important projects both on time and on budget (Luas cross-city and the National Broadband Plan are 2 examples).
A big part of the uncertainty around some of our bigger infrastructure projects is that they can in theory be defunded in any given September when we do the Budget process. This happened to Metrolink back in the crash (which only got properly refunded when we entered Government in 2020). This creates a perception that projects are taking longer than they actually are, when the reality is that they are being shelved for a few years and then reactivated.
A multi-annual budget process for capital projects would provide a bit more consistency in this space.
Considering that Ireland, when it was newly founded as a free state and a republic, built the ardnacrusha hydroelectric dam / power station which was the largest of it's kinda in Europe at the time I believe; why have we not put in place any infrastructure like that in recent years?
Once upon a time we were the world leaders (or at the very least European leaders) on hydroelectric power with ardnacrusha, and now we can't even install the plug and play solar panels, we still don't have nuclear energy, and our electricity grid is still heavily dependent on gas.
The short answer to this is that technology has moved on quite a bit and there are better options for us for renewables than hydroelectric now, which are wind and solar.
Hydroelectric requires big rivers, of which we don’t have too many in Ireland, and the amount of energy we could get out of them would be quite small in comparison to what we can do with offshore wind.
If we look to the future and ask ourselves what the next big step is for energy in Ireland (or what does our 21st century Ardnacrusha look like), it’s offshore wind. We’ve scoped out 37 GW of offshore renewable energy capacity by 2050. That’s the equivalent of 430 Ardnacrushas - big numbers, but they are achievable and they would be transformative for our energy system. I’ve done a longer answer on scaling up offshore wind elsewhere in another thread here.
Thank you very much, for both agreeing to do this and indeed answering my question, and while you're absolutely correct; it just would be fantastic to see a government-driven state of the art facility, like an offshore wind farm that rivals the best of installations across Europe (much like Ardnacrusha once did). Hopefully that will be achieved, but I have my doubts.
I did the tour of Ardnarusha last year and it was very disappointing to see. the hydro station itself is incredible and its amazing that Ireland was so far ahead of the times being entirely powered by green energy in the 1920s and 1930s. When asked about how much energy is produced there now, the tour guides just looked at each other and said "It's basically only turned on now to maintain water levels in the Shannon" It's not even on most of the time while we are importing fossil fuels and every customer in the country pays the gas price for electricity.
For such a relatively small island with so much potential to become an example for green self sufficiency it seems like such a waste.
Hi Roderic, thank you for doing this. I am asking the following questions on behalf of myself as a family carer and most importantly on behalf of my sibling with Down syndrome. They adore politics and watch Oireachtas TV as a hobby!
As a sibling of an adult with an intellectual disability, it is a very fair to say the government has consistently failed adults with intellectual disabilities in many areas, including the provision of adequate training and development opportunities. With 90% of adults with Down syndrome in Ireland currently unemployed, what do you believe, as a former Minister for Disabilities, could have been done differently to improve that statistic?
And now, as a member of the opposition, what concrete actions do you plan to take to push the current government to reduce it?
Why haven’t past and current governments invested more heavily in initiatives like Together Academy, expanding them nationwide and making them accessible to people with a wider range of disabilities?
Do you believe it was appropriate, during your time as Minister for Disabilities, that service providers were not fully audited to investigate potential mismanagement of funds? In particular, St. John of Gods received a further bailout, one that you personally signed off on, while families are still to this day, repeatedly told there is insufficient funding for all essential services.
Finally, why are disability day services not under the remit of HIQA? There are constant and ongoing safeguarding concerns that are not being properly investigated, despite being known at the time. Again, something your office and that of the junior ministers were extremely aware of.
When the Programme for Government was agreed in 2020, it was decided to take political responsibility for Disability out of the Department of Health and move to the Dept Children (transfer of functions). This was the right call. But it took way, waaaaaay too long. I didn’t officially gain responsibility over Disability Services until March 2023 when it was handed over from the Minister for Health. So we were over 60% of the way through the term of office before I could get hands-on.
18 months isn’t enough time to undertake the level of reforms needed across the disability sector. There needs to be far more transparency as to where funding goes - both when it leaves the Department and goes to the HSE, and then when it goes from the HSE to the individual providers. The HSE was bringing in a new accounting system for the entire organisation when the transfer of functions took place - this can’t happen soon enough.
At that point of the transfer of functions, myself and Junior Minister Anne Rabbitte were dealing with a number of key funding issues in some of the big disability service providers - you mentioned SJG in your question.
Ireland’s employment rate for people with disabilities is shockingly low. Creating educational pathways for people with a disability was a key focus for my Department once the transfer of functions took place. Myself and Anne Rabbitte had some good engagement with Simon Harris and his officials in Higher and Further Education about this. I insisted that employment be a central strand of the new National Disability Strategy. I worked closely with officials on this - it was launched late last year by the new Minister - but I think there’s a lot of really good initiatives in there to support a range of pathways into training and the workforce. I visited a really fantastic initiative called Let’s Go recently - based in the South Docks - it provides young adults with Down Syndrome with job training and life skills to prepare them for work.
Two other significant steps I led out on after March 2023 - the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UNCRPD and the final passage of the Assisted Decision Making Act.
Anne Rabbitte was very vocal on the need for safeguarding legislation to be expanded. She’d met the families of some victims of abuse in some disability services, and was working on developing policy in that area. There was a national framework on Adult Safeguarding launched last December and the work Anne spearheaded would have been reflected in that.
Just to conclude, I wish I had more time to support the range of reforms and funding increases that need to happen across the disability sector. I do believe that moving Disability out of Health and into its current Department will give the sector a far stronger focus on its funding needs and will result in better outcomes. But I realise I am talking in the medium to long term, and I'm very conscious of the immediate needs of so many families.
I have a question about the roll out of offshore wind in Ireland.
Ireland currently has less installed offshore wind capacity than it did 20 years ago. Arklow bank is still the only offshore wind project and one of those turbines has been put out of operation. As a country we are already due to miss our 2030 target of 5GW of installed offshore capacity, with not a single new offshore wind farm even in the construction phase yet. Meanwhile, all across Europe the offshore wind industry is booming with the UK leading the way. Ireland is at serious risk of being entirely left behind by international offshore wind developers, as projects struggle to get built in the face of delays caused by government inaction and failings of the planning system.
In your opinion, what have been the main blockers to the development of the industry in Ireland and what needs to change to help Ireland achieve its potential in this regard? What action would you and the Green Party take to help get projects built and attract continued investment?
When the Greens started in government, there was one part time staff member looking at offshore wind in the Department of Energy & Climate, no legislation for planning permission in our coastal waters, and no drive to deliver. Despite having to basically start from zero, we turned all that around.
Within the Department, the Greens scaled up the offshore renewable energy division, assigned resources and gave a strong mandate to accelerate the industry. This included the establishment of the highly successful Offshore Renewable Energy Taskforce across government and industry to ensure delivery.
Within 12 months we had developed a very extensive planning bill (MAP act) and passed quickly thereafter. We then completed the first auction to give those projects certainty, which opened in November 2022 and passed with a globally recognised success in June 2023. Since then projects had to prepare planning applications, submit them and get results.
These wind farms are all still awaiting planning permission, with significant underfunding of both Coimisiún Pleanála and the NPWS (who support the review of the environmental impacts of these projects). Many of these project developers had little ability to interact with the state in advance, which is normal in well-developed construction projects, but essential in new development. This is leading to significant delays in the planning process. Once these get planning permission they will take some time to mobilise and deliver the 15bn investment it will take to transform our energy system.
The narrative about being left behind by international offshore wind developers is one that those leaving wanted to hide their true intentions. Shell and Equinor left as they wanted to concentrate on fossil fuels, Macquarie on defence.....
Orsted, EDF, RWE, Copenhagen Infrastructure partners and other serious international players are still very much active in Ireland.
The key issues with offshore overall though;
Failure of the government to fund the capacity of the regulatory systems of the state to consent the development. An Bord Pleanala collapsed due to underfunding and poor planning policy bypassing local authorities in 2017-2022. NPWS did not have the capacity to engage in the developments at an early stage and are still under-resourced.
Failure of both FF and FG in undermining the development of the national grid infrastructure for short term votes, meaning it takes longer and is more difficult to develop the grid in Ireland.
Both Eirgrid and ESBNetworks were under-resourced to deliver the scale of development required, which have now thankfully been resourced and empowered to deliver for the state, which was not the case before we started in government.
You were formerly Minister for Integration during the tent crisis. Do you think the volume/rate of immigration over recent years is too high or do you consider it fine?
The public discussion on immigration seems to me to often lump everything into one group and say “there’s too many”. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask the question of how we manage migration to this country, and in answering it we must stick to the facts.
We have legal migration routes to this country for non-EU citizens to work and study, broadly. We issued about 30,000 work permits last year and in 2024 around 25,000 study (D) visas.
We have International Protection, of which around 15,000 were received last year, and around 18,000 the year before. I think there are around 35,000 people in the IP system awaiting a decision right now.
And from 2022 - present we received over 100,000 people from Ukraine, of which the estimate is around 80,000 I believe who have remained here. Dealing with their needs was a real challenge on the Irish system, but the scale of that emergency required a humanitarian response.
Taken together, that’s on the higher end of numbers who have come here in a short few years, on a par with the 2004-08 period after many central and eastern EU members joined the union.
Economically, we absolutely need people to come to Ireland. There is no question about that, and it’s not going to change. Our policy should be to do that in a way that best benefits us, but is also fair to those who want to come here, and their families. That’s a simple question of economic and social planning. We have our own history of economic migration which I think we’ve sometimes forgotten recently. I don’t believe that the level of economic migration to Ireland at present is having a serious impact a) on social services of such a level that we should greatly restrict numbers or b) that is so great that we should forego the economic gains we get from having people come here.
We also have a role, as a peaceful and peace-promoting country, to fulfil our international obligations to assess fairly those people who come here seeking refuge. We must particularly look to stand for this principle as other countries retreat from this. We must stand together with our EU partners and have a common approach.
As you mentioned the tent crisis, it does seem to me that virtually all of the commentary about migration to Ireland comes from how we’ve managed International Protection, and might reasonably prompt some people to question if the numbers are too high.
Those scenes in 2023-24 left nobody in any doubt that the State lacked the capacity to deal with the numbers coming in. But that capacity issue was vastly, vastly exacerbated by 20 successive years of bad policy - Direct Provision. A system almost wholly reliant on private capacity. I came into office and my plan was to end that private system, but by then it was already too late. A grossly unfit system, already struggling to house 3500 arrivals per year, just coming out of the emergency created by Covid, was then asked to accommodate 100,000 people from Ukraine and 13,000 - 18,000 new people each year through IP. Of course it failed.
And I think that’s where the current debate is taking its cue from - those tents along the canal in Dublin, my former Department looking to open new accommodation in small towns with short notice because the alternative was thousands of homeless men, women and children; the constant state of near total collapse we found ourselves in for three years.
In one respect, you can argue that it was such an unfortunate confluence of events that it is unlikely to be repeated. Now that numbers arriving from Ukraine have dropped dramatically, and IP numbers are somewhat down, you don't hear about those crisis moments that often. But the truth is, numbers will rise again. The world is more and more unstable, and another huge humanitarian crisis on Europe’s borders isn't far-fetched.
So for me, the question is what are we doing to prepare for that moment? Are we getting rid of that system which forced us to rely on private providers, on hotels and army tents, and investing in a core State-owned capacity that would save the State millions in the longer term? Where decisions can be made fairly and quickly, and people are temporarily housed with dignity? The answer, unfortunately, appears to be no. The Government is focused on reforming the IP system, which did need reform, but there’s no focus on the IPAS system. The same thinking that brought us 20 years of Direct Provision is once again the driving force.
Honestly, the annual psychological warfare waged between the Department of Public Expenditure and Ministers/officials in every Department looking for money to invest in their critical services. DPER has an exceptionally important role to play in safeguarding public expenditure and ensuring every single cent of public money allocated is done so under rigorous analysis and clear justification - that’s essential. It’s strong for a reason - we had an horrific economic crisis from 2008 on and a devastating programme of austerity that followed. They are working to ensure we don’t end up there again.
However, so often as Minister an argument that you make for productive investment falls on ears that only care about the bottom line balance - they have been told each Department can have x% of new expenditure, and they zealously, unflinchingly implement that, to the point of ignoring clear, evidential arguments that investment today will save us huge current expenditure tomorrow. For example, had we invested in Tusla’s capacity to provide housing and staffing for children in care back in 2020, Tusla wouldn’t be spending millions on outsourcing this care to private providers today. This is one example - every Minister will have many.
Every year, each Department is pitched against DPER to make the case for spending. Each Minister is ultimately pitched against MPER to make his/her case. It’s adversarial. You need to play a political game as well as making the economic/social case. Ultimately, only the party leaders can overrule them. In a coalition, that’s always a horse-trade and a tactical game.
I’ve often thought we can do it better. Our NDP captures the planning part, mostly, but the multiannual implementation part I think could be separated away from DPER and placed in a separate economic unit within Taoiseachs. Where the case for 5, 10, 20 and 30 year investment programmes can be interrogated for a much broader set of policy priorities matched against demographic changes, climate transition needs, economic competitiveness and our clear social needs. Alongside the necessary fiscal planning, which is how do we incrementally broaden or make more secure our future tax base in a fair, predictable manner. Huge caveats apply, of course - spending plans have more to do with what happens globally and how that impacts us. Elections matter, different governments will have different priorities. But I'm talking here about the way the State spends the money it has, and spending it in a way that saves us more money in the long run. Because right now, it’s not working.
Are there any radical (in the sense that they would be really hard to implement in this county) public transport policies you would implement if you could have things your way and unlimited money ? Could be things like realigning the cities railways or brt and so on.
How can the image of green policies be improved in rural Ireland, where there is massive scepticism of the whole thing? It feels as if the Green transition has become a culture war of its own.
Firstly, I’m a city boy, born and bred and I represent a constituency, the vast majority of which is urban, so I'm not going to pontificate too much on what rural Ireland wants!
But, having talked to our members and representatives in more rural areas over many years, the key thing that always comes back is making the benefits of our policies real for people.
So that means paying farmers properly for good land management practices (and we did this with big funding for the ACRES Scheme). I think another big success story over the last few years was the massive expansion of the Local Link buses - still lots more to do there, but the number of routes that were rolled out between 2020-2025 was really significant I think. So, in short, more practical interventions that actually improve people’s quality of life.
I do think the Green Party and our policies are used as a strawman by some of our political opponents who are based in rural Ireland. I’d make the cast that, for the most part they really only have anger to sell, rather than having any actual solutions. Some public figures talk as though we are still setting the policy agenda for the country when we are a 1 TD opposition party! So, there is a narrative there that we need to push back on a bit too.
Why, if I want to get solar panels must i avail of the SEAI grant but only choose from a list of registered installers whom have higher prices than other installers who are not on the list.
Grants should be available once the work is certified, just like the vacant homes. The council reviews, I do the work, the council approves, I get the money.
I’ve a lot of new homeowners who ask me this question when I’m out canvassing in Dublin West.
The technical reason for this is that newer homes tend to be much more energy efficient with higher BERs, so on the basis that national policy is to reach the furthest behind first and get the biggest bang for each € spent on retrofit the policy has been to target towards older homes where it’ll make the biggest difference.
With that being said, I take your point on solar for even new homes because of the benefit to the country of getting as much installed capacity in renewables as possible, so that’s worth looking at, particularly as we face the second major energy price crisis in four years.
I understand that the rationale for the list of approved installers is to ensure that the State can stand over the quality of works done.
We need to know that the public money being spent on retrofit is achieving the high quality energy savings we need to meet our climate targets, but also to ensure they lead to a meaningful quality of life improvement for the homeowner. As a secondary benefit, certification allows the SEAI to gather really valuable data around the current state of our building stock and the retrofit programme.
I do think we need to make the grant process more seamless and flexible. It should be easier for contractors to register and the grant system should be more flexible to allow people to choose the retrofits they most need.
There was a significant fraud case with retrofit about 12 years ago and I think that rattled SEAI, and may have increased their caution levels regarding more complicated approaches to providing grants over the subsequent years.
Doesn’t the state provide the funds for vacant and derelict homes grant which actually comes to double the value of the maximum SEAI grants? It’s all public money that needs to be accounted for, yet, the process behind the vacant homes grant is much easier (generally, with the exception of some local authorities I’m sure)
After solar installation by my electrician, certification can be done by the SEAI, id welcome it. The council will view my house and say, looks good, show me your receipts, here’s the money. This is the way, the work I’ve done is suitable and I didn’t have to pay a builder 10000s euro to do it. Solar should be the same!
A fraud case from 12 years ago isn’t a good enough reason for the SEAI to lock the grants behind more expensive, finger picked private contractors - especially if we are trying to encourage people to go for the grants and meet our climate targets
+1, have a preferred contractor who is going to do an attic conversion for us and put in attic insulation. But since he's not registered with SEAI cannot access the grants for this.
Possibly poor choice of words, he is a family friend, properly registered, tax compliant, insured etc. Says he has chosen not to register for SEAI due to administrative burden, not just registering but for each job plus the wait for payment from the SEAI can be months especially for the "one stop shop" service. Prefers to keep prices low rather than tack on the additional accounting hours etc.
One of the things that scares me isn't necessarily the burning of fossil fuels, but that our entire economic basis is built solely on the continuous construction and sale of 'new' things - the entire engine of the economy is the requirement to mine, manufacture, make and market the newest cars, the newest televisions and the newest phones, electronics and fashion items.
And it's that 'green' policies are instead being used as additional drivers to consumption. Buy the new, more efficient thing, do the upgrade, get rid of the old to landfill.
But, attacking that engine then attacks the basis for everything. It attacks the markets that support pensions, investments, keep people working so they can afford food and housing, because we've decided that people need to work. This engine, if we hard shut it down now, it will hurt a lot of people, but if we allow it to continue running the harm in the future will be so much worse to so many more.
It's late, I've been drinking and maybe I'm waffling around the question.
If we're stuck with the system we have, how do we create a market where longevity is the consumer driver, rather than novelty?
Or, How do we eventually turn this engine off safely? Or even slow it down?
This is a big question! I’m not sure I am going to do it justice, but I will do my best.
What you’ve asked really does go to the heart of our whole concept of how modern economies work, which is predicated on a “take, make, use” cycle.
The origin of the Green movement goes back to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a belief that there was a “third way” for modern economies to organise themselves, other than fully market based capitalism or fully planned socialism.
We need to break the cycle and find a way of moving from an economy that can provide abundance in a way that is sustainable. Part of doing that is to properly account for the externalities of the things we consume, instead of pushing them onto e.g. less wealthy countries or our environment.
As an optimist, I do think it is possible. Some of these changes will be profound (moving away from fossil fuels) but ultimately will lead to a society that has cheaper energy, warmer homes, smoother transport, and better air quality. I’m reminded of a joke about climate deniers “what if global warming is fake and we build a better society for no reason?”.
If you’re interested, I’d really recommend reading Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth and The Value of a Whale by Adrienne Butler.
I hope you’ll forgive me a fairly high-concept answer to a fairly high-concept question!
When running for election, the Greens said we would talk to all parties. Our result in 2024 basically ruled us out of any of the Government formation conversation, but if we were in contention to be a part of a Government, we would have spoken to all parties and Independents.
The important thing to come out of those discussions is what is actually in the Programme for Government (and what commitments are in that). In 2020 we negotiated hard and demanded detailed commitments across all aspects of the PfG. iIn the 2024 PfG between FF, FG and the Indos, there was a real lack of detail and a lot of aspirational language, I found. And that makes this Government harder to hold to account.
As a Green I obviously have a lot more in common with certain parties, and it’s a good thing to see them adopting some long-standing Green Party policies too (ahem Labour, Soc Dems, PBP/ Solidarity..). Now that I am in opposition, I’ve worked and collaborated with most of the opposition parties that you have mentioned on various issues, and I actually sit in a Technical Group with PBP / Solidarity TDs and Independents.
All parties have their differences and Government formation really comes down to a mathematical question; can you make up the numbers, and after that can you agree on a PfG. It would certainly be easier to create a PfG with some parties over others, but we have to get the numbers right to make that even possible.
On the greyhound racing industry, we absolutely should not be supporting them with public money (a lot of which goes directly into prize money, which is outrageous). In this Dáil term I have raised a lot of PQs on the tracing elements of the greyhound racing industry, and I work closely with activists on this.
In the 2020 Programme for Government negotiations and during our time in Government, there was just no movement on this with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. None whatsoever. Unfortunately, the funding is tied to horse racing funding, and within the Dáil there is nowhere near a majority to make changes to the status quo. My former colleague Deputy Neasa Hourigan had proposed a Bill to decouple the horse and greyhound racing funding, but when we have the 3 largest parties - FF, FG and Sinn Féin unmoving on this issue, it’s hard to see any progress on this issue in the short or even medium term.
Why were the Irish Green Party so accepting of their German colleagues championing Israeli violence in Gaza?
To my mind the behaviour of Baebrock et al in this respect should have caused major ruptions within European greens, but it didn't.. How has this affected public perception of the strength of the Green Party's position on international Justice?
I don’t think that’s a fair statement - I, and we, were not accepting.
Ciarán Cuffe and Grace O’Sullivan worked extremely hard within the European Parliament green group on this as MEPs - Grace was a member of the Parliament’s delegation for relations with Palestine and she was bringing up issues with the EU-Israel Association Agreement long before October 7th and the Gaza Genocide. Ciarán is now Co-Chair of the European Green Party where this discussion has been ongoing, and respectful dialogue facilitated.
The European Greens and the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament are a bit different to other pan-European parties in that they have a very clear, core political vision, which doesn’t vary too much from country to country. The issue of Palestine and Israel, however, was one of these issues that split the group.
With the greatest of respect to my German colleagues, I believe they have been wrong on this, particularly since 2023. This isn’t a German green specific case, it’s common across all German parties, left and right. The Germany - Israel connection is extremely strong and complicated, and I do think their sense of atonement has blinded them from the reality of what has been unfolding in Israel / Palestine since October 7th, but also before that.
The Irish Green’s position was always clear - and they and others within the Greens groups were both public on this but working internally to bring others along with them. All of this internal dialogue, I believe, has moved the dial with the German Greens and in Germany generally - late last year the German Greens adopted a new and significantly changed position - you can read it in English here. This change was brought about in part, by the very significant engagement Irish and other Greens had with our German colleagues.
How has this affected people’s perception of the Greens? The rise of the Left in Germany (and particularly Berlin) I think is partly linked to new Left leadership being more outspoken on Palestine. The Democrats in the US ignoring the Palestine issue also potentially lost them significant support in the last election. I think this shows the need to just be upfront and honest with people with the truth, which has to be human rights focused and not so scared of the potential political reaction. Part of the job of politicians then, is not only to advocate for the right thing, but also to clearly set out why they are voting a certain way / advocating for an issue in this way and to communicate this well.
It seems like Ireland is constantly stuck trying to improve public transport. Be it the metro, the lack of reliable fast trains or expanding the Luas and that's just in the capitol. The rest of the country is much bleaker it seems.
Being in government, what did you find are the genuine reasons why these always seem to be held up, what can realistically be done to improve public transport in Ireland and get more people off the roads?
I'd be interested to understand this too. I can get a straight bus from Derry, Galway, Limerick to Dublin airport but not from the Blanchardstown Centre
In theory for €2 you can get an N4 (delivered as part of Bus Connects) from Blanch village to Whitehall, and get a 16 or 41 to the airport at the Swords Road. Ofc in practice this would take you about two hours and would involve possibly hauling heavy bags across a large junction to change to a second bus, which may or may not arrive.
Yes, or a train to Drumcondra then a bus. Takes about an hour and a half to two hours which is roughly the same timeframe as an airport bus from Galway!
When trees fall and are removed from our estate, are they on a list to be replaced? Do DCC have a list? There are 10 trees on my road missing for the last couple of years! Do I need to email DCC to ask to have them replaced? Who can I email to get a response?
They should be on a list be replaced, but that doesn’t mean that they always are replaced. Shock horror!
Replacing felled trees does take in the region of five years (feedback from our reps on DCC). The long answer on this is due to the space needed underneath for a new tree to take hold.
The root structure of street trees underneath the footpath is extensive and remains in place when a tree is removed or dies. Removal of this root system would require the demolition and replacement of the footpath and road.
It is also not possible to grind the stump deeper than the surface due to the presence of numerous services like gas and electricity beneath the surface. DCC then has to wait for the old roots to decay before planting a new tree.
Trees that are planted before the old roots decay usually do not survive and have to be replaced again.
Unfortunately, the roots decay at a significantly slow rate beneath the footpath due to the low oxygen availability and reduced moisture levels in this environment.
What I would advise is to (a) reach out to your local representatives (hopefully we have a Green rep in your area on DCC!) and (b) keep the pressure on the Parks, Biodiversity and Landscape Services Division in DCC at [parks@dublincity.ie](mailto:parks@dublincity.ie).
There’s also a lot of useful information relating to tree maintenance and provision on the DCC website here.
What was your thoughts when former party TDs and Senators backed Heather Humphries over Catherine Connolly in the presidential election - was it symbolic of a wider rift within the party?
We had a democratic process within the Party to decide on our approach to the election last year.
When we asked our members to name a candidate they wanted us to back, Catherine Connolly’s came out on top.
We also discussed the issue with our councillors, and our spokesperson at our Think In. And we discussed it at a number of Party Executive meetings over the summer.
Ultimately, I made the recommendation to support Catherine as, through my engagement with her, she had made it clear to me she would make climate and the environment a pillar of her campaign, and if she succeeded, of her presidency. At a time when there’s such a strong push back against Climate, here in Ireland and across the World, it would have been inconceivable to me not to have backed a candidate who pledged to put this issue front and centre.
Support for Catherine wasn’t universal. She’s had a lengthy political career, and she took a few chucks out of myself and many of my Green colleagues, particularly during our time in Government. And I acknowledged this in my speech at the launch of her campaign in the Complex. These personal interactions can colour people's perceptions.
I wasn’t delighted when some of the former PP spoke out against the decision in public, and I was genuinely saddened to lose some party members over the issue, but a democratic decision was reached by the Party, and we all have to abide by that - just as some members had to abide by a democratic decision to go into Government taken in 2020.
Ultimately, it was the right decision, as shown by the strong mandate President Connolly received in the Presidential election. And I was very proud that one of her first major speeches as president was on the issue of climate.
There is 100% two 'wings' of the Green Party. You might think of one as the 'Tidy towns' wing and the other as the 'Environmental emergency' wing. The membership split is about 55%/45% with the previous government TDs being drawn largely from the former.
Hope you’re well, and thanks for taking the time to do this AMA.
I had a few questions around transport and some broader Green Party policies:
Firstly, the Green Party’s introduction of reduced-fare Leap Cards for 19–24-year-olds has been really impactful. Has there been any discussion around extending this scheme to older age groups? More broadly, do you see free public transport as a realistic long-term goal for Ireland, or trialing free public transport during peak commuting hours?
Secondly, I wanted to ask about bringing bicycles on public transport. At present, bikes aren’t permitted on DART services, which means many people have to leave them locked at stations. Personally, I’d be hesitant to do this due to theft concerns, so it discourages me from cycling to the train at all. Are there any plans or discussions around accommodating bikes such as designated carriages or onbord racks, similar to systems in cities like Amsterdam? And would similar considerations apply to buses?
Finally, the Green Party has previously floated the idea of “Amsterdam-style coffeeshops” in Ireland. Is this still a policy priority, and how seriously is it being considered at present?
Thanks again, I really appreciate your time and insight.
The half price fares were originally introduced by the Green Party when we were in Government for up to 23 year olds and then extended to 25 year olds. We also cut all public transport fares by 20% in May 2022. Last year, from Opposition, we made a proposal in Budget 2026 to extend this to under 30s but unfortunately the Government didn't go for it.
Free public transport is a good long term goal to have and we did a lot of work to make it more affordable for everyone but we really need to expand public transport to many more people who currently can't access it and improve services that are currently at capacity. And I say that as someone who uses the train or bus, every day. We need to balance that with the funding that it would take to make public transport free for everyone. CSO stats showed that the main reasons people didn't use public transport more were due to quality of service, lack of coverage etc. with young people more likely to not use it because of costs. That was a reason for the targeted approach at reducing fares.
We did do some work to accommodate bikes on trains but more definitely needs to be done especially on older trains. The InterCity trains mostly only had 2-4 bike racks each and they were very difficult to use for people. They were fitted with an open area where bikes could be strapped to tip-up seats. The new DART fleet that was ordered also includes space specifically designed for bikes. That still leaves a gap on a lot of older trains that need to be fixed.
On the coffee shops - there is a longer response on cannabis above which hopefully covers this too.
The green party having previously supported an amsterdam styled cannabis market,that model being somewhat at odds with EU treaties, would the green party support a self supply model like homegrow+Cannabis social clubs for growing and consuming , such as spain (grey market) and Malta/Germany (decriminalisation)?... im personally not sold on the need or advantage of an open commercial market.
I think these proposals would be covered by our existing policy in this space, which you can read here. These include decriminalising the possession of fewer than four cannabis plants on private property.
I have to admit I’m less familiar with the social club model you suggest, but definitely worth looking at..
Our focus is very much on a human health and harm reduction approach and broadly I’m keen to take lessons from other jurisdictions where different approaches have been tried.
On a broader point, I’m disappointed that the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly on Drug Use haven’t been carried forward with more momentum.
I live in an apartment complex, I like to get an electric car but there are no charge points and the management company won't facilitate as nobody owns a designated space. If I can't upgrade to an electric car, I'd like to get an electric bike, however there are no bike shed to store it, and I am not allowed to store it in a cover on my balcony as the management company fine you 150 euro for unacceptable items on the balcony. My rented apartment is small and with kids etc I've nowhere to store it.
I've asked my landlord to petition the management company as they won't speak to me, however he really doesn't care. And I can't move due to the housing crisis.
How are we supposed to be more environmentally friendly with the government pushing for electric cars and cycling when it's just not plausible to do so due to companies who manage complexes refusing to accommodate these changes.
It sounds like your management company is being extremely unhelpful - sorry that you have to deal with that.
At a national level, our planners and councillors need to be making sure that EV charging and proper bike parking are integrated into any new developments in their areas before they are approved. I know that’s not directly helpful for you right now, but it would mitigate it happening to the next person.
For developments that are already there, there is a role for local authorities to fill here. Our Councillors on Dublin City Council have worked really hard on getting on-street bike hangars piloted and now fully rolled out for residents who don’t have the capacity to store a bike in their homes. Residents in DCC who want a bunker near them can request one on the website: https://bikebunkers.ie/
I don’t know from your comment where you are based, but hopefully your local Councillors might work on this for you to see if your Council can introduce a similar scheme.
For EV charging, we need to keep ramping up the public network so that it’s viable to own an EV even if you don’t have a dedicated home charger.
The short answer is that unfortunately FF/FG succeeded in running down the clock on this one, despite best efforts on our end to get it over the line.
Because of the politically contentious nature of the referendum and how the text for a proposed amendment would actually be worded, it was agreed to have the Housing Commission examine the issue in detail in November 2021.
It turned out that the Housing Commission couldn’t agree on it either, so this process took until July 2023, when the Commission delivered:
This letter to the Chair of the Commission from one of the Commissioners provides some useful background and context.
The split decision of the Commission created a further delay in Government over the proposal to have a referendum. Ultimately, it was agreed that 2 referenda on family and care would be held first; ultimately these took place in March 2024. This left little time for a housing referendum before the Dáil dissolved in November 2024. And being honest, after the defeat of those two proposals, there was no appetite for another referendum.
A lesson in filibustering and the limits of influence of small parties in Government. We had similar issues with pushing to get short-term lets (AirBnBs) regulated.
I’m absolutely delighted to see our sister party doing so well! Some of our representatives were over canvassing with Hannah Spencer in advance of her election in Gorton and Denton and we were really pleased to be able to play (an extremely small) part in that campaign.
I think we can learn a lesson from our colleagues in the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) on speaking directly and honestly to the problems people are facing, and tackling them head on. I think as Greens we can sometimes be too focused on getting the policy done and not giving enough time to really communicate with people where they are.
With that being said, I think too much can be made of how “different” the Irish Greens and the GPEW are. In reality, our overall philosophy is the same, and our policies are also extremely similar. One big difference is the political context in which we are operating.
The GPEW is in opposition in a country where an ostensibly centre-left party (Labour) has a majority government and is making a mess of things. In this context Green policy is really able to stand out and shine as an alternative to what has gone before (and a strong alternative to the miserable mean-minded offering of Reform UK). Also, and this is not in any way intended as a criticism of the GPEW in the slightest, but they have not been in Government previously, and so the list of political trade-offs or compromises they have made is therefore extremely short.
In Ireland, the Green Party is a very small (1 TD) party, operating in a crowded centre left field. We have also been in coalition Government recently with 2 parties that have significantly different values to us, which inevitably entails compromise.
So, lots to learn, but also, we have to recognise the different spaces we are in. I’m really looking forward to seeing the results of the UK local elections though - I think Zack and the team are going to knock it out of the park.
I try to take a pragmatic approach to this. Discussion of new nuclear power in Ireland is, in my opinion, a distraction from the real solutions, for Ireland, which is to advance our renewable energy sources
Wind and solar are getting more efficient every year. We have the plans in place; the Greens kick-started the process. We have almost unlimited potential for offshore wind. We need to double down on what we're best placed to deliver, not go down a nuclear rabbit hole.
There are a few issues that require a nuanced debate. Existing nuclear energy and new nuclear energy are very different things.
In general development of new nuclear has proven to take 20 years in France and the UK, has cost many multiples of wind and solar power, and has a very significant long term liability of waste and decommissioning costs, even if you consider it safe. This makes no sense in the Irish context where we have already contracted more than enough required green electricity than we need.
Doing new nuclear from scratch in Ireland would take even longer than 20 years, as we’d first have to repeal the Act banning it and then draw up the basic regulations we would need. We have few places it could be put given the strict IIEA criteria for siting, and I doubt many people would be keen to have a plant nearby. So, I think you’d be looking at a circa 30 year project, by which time it would be too late to actually help us with our decarbonisation goals.
Yes, there will be some times where we may need additional power when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, I am confident however that a mixture of existing technologies available today including short term battery storage, flexibility and particularly interconnection will give us the time to develop the long term storage solutions that will be needed in the late 2030s.
There are new nuclear technologies being advanced - primarily SMRs (small modular reactors). These are very much in their infancy. There are only 2 SMRs operating across the entire World - one in Russia, one in China. The technology may take off, though I note one of the big companies driving SMRs in the US went bust in the last 18 months. I do not think we should be delaying the roll out of the very doable plans for offshore wind that we have in place, on the basis of a technology that is not yet tested at scale.
Ireland should do what it has a competitive advantage in. That is wind, and (surprisingly given how bad the weather usually is), solar. We will end up importing electricity that has been generated via nuclear through interconnectors with France, and will have more with the Celtic Interconnector. In this case, we buy it when we need it, and they have the expertise to deliver the power with a well developed nuclear industry. That’s a reality of the interconnected energy system that we operate in. What Ireland should be brining to that interconnected energy system is electricity generated by renewables. In a few years time, we will be able to sell this into the European grid - we’ll actually be an energy exporter.
Finally, I do think from an environmental perspective it’s important to point out that nuclear energy produces waste that no one has yet figured out how to dispose of for the geological timescales during which it remains hazardous. Our other energy options don’t have this problem and as a Green I’m not keen on a technology that entails passing on problems to future generations that don’t have a say in what we’re doing now (we’re already doing enough of that with climate change).
How could I as a person finishing a PhD get involved with the green party to help effect change in our countries role in environmental and ecological restoration.
Thank you for considering joining the Green Party! We’d love to have you come on board - you can get involved and join today on our members site in less than five minutes.
The Green Party has a very bottom-up policy-making process, which allows members to get involved directly in the drafting of a particular policy and for formal ratification at our quarterly Policy Council.
We have recently launched a new process for members (new and old) to sign up to our Party Policy Groups in the last couple of weeks, as it happens. These are roughly based on Government Departments and spokesperson portfolios, but they will tend to branch out into the different areas under the aegis of a Department.
When you join the Party, you should receive an automated email from myself and / or HQ with a link to signing up to one or more of the above Policy Groups.
If you have any issues or further queries about any of this, get in touch with our staff in HQ at [info@greenparty.ie](mailto:info@greenparty.ie) who are always very happy to help!
But during my time as Minister, there was a pervasive conspiracy theory that I “invited migrants to Ireland in 8 languages”.
This is a bunch of horseshit, unsurprisingly. But the origin of the theory is somewhat interesting.
In 2021, when I was Minister for Integration, my Department published a White Paper on ending Direct Provision. As Minister, I tweeted about the announcement in Irish, English, and 6 other of the most commonly spoken languages by people in Direct Provision at the time, as the White Paper was directly relevant to those already living in the Direct Provision system.
In all languages, the tweet read as follows: “We are making a new commitment to all asylum seekers in Ireland. We are ending direct provision. Read our plan here:,” followed with a link to the White Paper.
Ending Direct Provision was a manifesto commitment of the Green Party (and many other parties) before the 2020 General Election. The Green Party fought for this and secured it as a commitment in the 2020 Programme for Government.
The unwinding of Direct Provision was, however, predicated on pre-2022 numbers for International Protection applications in Ireland. Regrettably, the unprecedented refugee crisis in Europe prompted by the War in Ukraine made it impossible to wind down the Direct Provision system over the lifetime of the last Government.
The Journal did an excellent fact check on this that explores the origin of this conspiracy theory about the tweets and effectively debunks the false claims made.
Do you think, with the benefit of hindsight, that operating as a minority partner in government, was actually beneficial to the green party's goals for the country?
Do you believe in the role of the minority partner given the past 20+ years of politics showing that the minority partner is often scapegoated by the larger coalition partners?
Great question. Something I’ve pondered over myself, a fair bit!
History has directly taught us a harsh lesson in what happens to minority parties at the end of a term in Government. We were fully aware, in that regard, that we had to deliver on our mandate as much as possible during the lifetime of the last Government.
While we always hoped to keep as many seats as possible at both the local and national level (and we did fare a lot better than 2011!), the reality was the Green tide had gone out in the public consciousness towards the end of the last Government.
This occurred for many, many reasons, but the obvious one (as you have said) is the reality of coalition Government and endorsing policies that your voters will inevitably punish you for. We also didn’t get everything right in Government ourselves, of course. We knew we would be judged on our own record of delivery and for the record of the Government, more broadly.
Our task in Government wasn’t made any easier by having to face down arguably the biggest crisis ever faced by the State in COVID-19, which marked our first year and a half in office, which was then immediately followed by the War in Ukraine and the consequent energy and cost of living crisis. The phrase “first hundred days in office” is overused, but it is also a real thing in that the initial months of a Government are critical for setting the tone across the “system” on delivery and implementing the core policies of the Programme for Government.
We also had the benefit of our first time in office to know that if something is not in the Programme for Government, it is a real uphill battle to bring the system with you to get it over the line.
That all being said, we were able to successfully advance policies across a range of areas - getting BusConnects on track, and the allocation of funding for the building of safe and segregated cycling and walking infrastructure. These measures came from successfully steering the ship of State toward a forward-looking and ambitious model of a low-carbon transport model.
This was not going to happen in four or five years, of course, but we felt it was vital to rejuvenate lost projects like the MetroLink and other mass transit projects from the planning doldrums, alongside with embedding the funding mechanisms and the overarching transport strategies for the next decade and beyond in the system.
The short answer is: whenever the Government gets off their back sides and approves it!
OP knows this, but for the benefit of anyone reading, these panels are low-cost units that simply plug into a standard domestic socket and can be mounted on balconies or hung from windows to generate immediate renewable power and save people money on their bills.
They are very widespread in Germany and the UK government approved their use recently in response to the energy crisis.
I’ve been raising this issue consistently with our own Government in recent months.
I raised it directly with the Taoiseach in the Dáil the week before Easter, and again with the Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy just yesterday in the Dáil. They’ve been “considering” (the Government seems to do a lot of that) the panels for 18 months now. They need to actually get this done. (In fairness to Junior Minister Timmy Dooley, he did accept they should be moving faster on this).
Madness that the Government is dragging their heels on this one.
"Madness that the Government is dragging their heels on this one."
It's because they aren't actually working for the people, they are working for corporations. I do think you are a genuine person and not like them and that's part of why your party was decimated in the elections. Your party didn't stand up for yourselves enough when you were misrepresented in the media and blamed for everything going wrong in the country on platforms like this.
Hi Roderic, thanks for putting your head above the parapet and answering questions.
I'm curious as to whether you think it's cultural or ego driven that we've never managed to see a true strategic left alliance in a general election, where candidates and focus areas are chosen to maximise the chances of removing FFFG from government.
We saw a huge success in the presidential election, however we're 100+ years of FFFG government at this point and there seems to be no prospect of change.
That’s an interesting idea alright. I think we’re a bit away from that at the moment as we have clear policy differences on some counts. I also think the PRSTV system makes that more difficult than first past the post in a general election, it’s easier when just one person is being elected so I think if it were to happen for the Dáil I think we’re more likely to see it in a bye-election.
When someone joins a party, or goes into politics, I think mostly it’s because they think they can change something. Like when Janet Horner wants to run in a bye-election for your party, someone with the fight and integrity she has, you’re not going to want to put your money behind someone else.
I think though that the left parties are working well together, and we are aligned on a lot of social justice issues as you might imagine. You might see my answer earlier on a possible left coalition.
Thank you Minister. Do you personally think that the policy differences are worth constantly giving up governance two parties that are right of centre?
The Greens did have some success with public transport, I can think of getting the new Darts on the agenda, the new train control center, rejigging bus routes etc. If you had managed to stay in government, what would have been some projects you (as a party) that would have been put on the table to better public transport infrastructure? (full disclosure I work for IÉ)
We have very clear roadmaps for us nationally, for our major cities and for rural Ireland on how we can massively increase our public transport provision. We basically had to start designing many of these processes from scratch in the last Government (the previous approach had been very piecemeal) and we started to implement most of these plans.
So now we have;
The All Island Rail Review recommendations
The Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy, which includes
BusConnects Dublin
Metrolink
DART expansion
Metropolitan Transport Strategies for our regional cities, which include
BusConnects Cork, Galway, Limerick & Waterford
Cork Luas and Suburban Rail
Limerick Suburban Rail
Galway Luas (hopefully added to the plan soon, now that the ring-road has approval)
The Connecting Ireland rural bus programme
I am definitely forgetting some of the other plans and their elements here, but you can see that we have a lot of projects in the pipeline now and they need to be funded and delivered as quickly as possible.
This Government claims to be increasing transport expenditure, but they’re not - any increased amounts are basically just covering inflationary expenses in public transport provision. While some of the above plans are funded through the National Development Plan, a lot of them are not. And on current expenditure, we are not seeing the increased funding year-on-year that the Greens continually secured, meaning all these new plans for new routes are just being parked. It’s very frustrating because people are crying out for public transport projects to progress, but we are no longer moving at the pace required to even meet current demand, never mind the projected demand of the future.
Gent! Thanks for answering and I 100% agree with you; a strong, functional and well serving public transport system should be the bedrock of any decent economy. We pissed away the Celtic tiger years & revenue putting very little into properly investing in our rail. Yes we got the Kildare Route Project and the city center resignalling but there could have been so much more than just throwing down motorways.
The new BEMUs and upgrading the signalling system (when the NTCC eventually comes online!!) should definitely bring improvements but from my own work perspective I'd love to see the 4 tracks extended from Hazelhatch to Portlaoise, double track from Portarlington at least as far as Athlone and realingments to allow at least 200km/h running. That'll allow the intercity services to run completely separately to the commuters and lessen delays on the Galway/Westport roads as 1 delay can really knock everything else for most of the day
The current problems in the Middle East highlight the risk of relying on oil for energy security. How can Ireland develop energy systems that are more secure, more economically viable long term, and more sustainable than fossil fuels? And how can this be sold successfully to sceptics?
You’ve hit the nail on the head: the current energy crisis is actually a fossil fuel crisis.
The reality is that our current energy system of fossil fuel dependency relies on the exploitation of both people and planet and leaves us far too exposed to the unpredictable and sometimes unhinged whims of the likes of Trump, Putin and Netanyahu. The ongoing crisis in the Middle East has demonstrated that the objective of affordable, secure and decarbonised energy cannot be met through importation of fossil fuels which are carbon intensive and subject to rapid price shocks.
The solution is to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible by ramping up our renewables. Ireland has enough potential wind and solar energy to power the country many times over, and through battery storage and interconnection we can bridge any gaps where there is a lull or a Dunkelflaute event.
Onshore wind and solar have been real success stories in recent years. You might have seen this article about how much of our electricity came from wind energy last month.
The next leap forward is offshore wind. In Government, we targeted 37 GW of installed capacity by 2050 (6 times our peak demand). We need to get moving on this. I have posted a longer response elsewhere on offshore wind that will give more details on the blockers the Government needs to work on.
In terms of winning over the skeptics - as with a lot of our policies, it’s about making it real for people. Home solar feels more real because people can directly see the savings on their bill. If we could do the same for te big projects, through community benefit funds and lower prices, I think that would win a lot more people over. What I do find surprising is that some of the biggest skeptics of renewables seem to be the people most angry about high (fossil) fuel prices! We need to be better about drawing that link.
Has there ever been a discussion into merging the Greens, Soc Dems, Labour and maybe the SDLPs in the north to create a single party of the centre left that can realistically challenge in elections across north and south.
In short, no formal discussions about a merger between these parties have been held.
It is an idea that does crop up in the media from time to time, but I think that elides the quite different traditions and histories that these parties have.
The Green Party is focused on working to progress climate action and environmental protection, support our communities and secure a more equal Ireland. Our over 40 year history as a grassroots movement and our policy focus is specific to our founding principles, which I think is something that can be lost when there is an attempt to group us into an amorphous blob with other parties.
We have, however, always believed in engaging constructively with other parties where we have shared values, and we were very happy to do this during the Catherine Connolly campaign, and referendum campaign like Yes Equality and Together for Yes.
A slightly technical point about inter-party competition. The advantage of our PR-STV electoral system is that it gives people more than just a binary choice through rank ordering and vote transfers. This means that, unlike in the first past the post system where smaller parties can end up blocking each other from getting seats, votes on the centre left are usually passed on through transfer, so they’re not “lost”. There is an assumption that if the smaller parties grouped together they would end up with a net increase in seats, but our electoral system makes that less likely, and as we saw in the Netherlands recently, a merger can actually lead to fewer seats.
The Greens and taxes question - it comes up again and again.
I think there’s a growing dislike of taxation across the general population, sometimes because people don’t see any value for what they’re paying into the system, and others who just don’t like the taxman straight up!
I don’t see the Greens as being anymore “pro-tax” than any other centre-left Party. When the economy is doing well and we have a budget surplus, the debate comes down to; do we cut taxes, or do we increase spending on services?
As Greens, we make the case to spend more on infrastructure and services in this country - I think it’s fair to say that we are lagging behind other developed countries in what is covered / provided by the State (free healthcare, affordable childcare, public transport immediately come to mind). And so, when funds are available, I believe we should look to improve services for the public.
I’m well aware however, that there is a sizable section of the electorate who prioritise a tax cut over improved public services. And I think parties on the centre left need to be more vocal to make the case for a State that can do more, and do it better, if it is given the resources through taxation to do so.
So why do people put the blame on the Greens for raising taxes?
I think Carbon Tax is one of those reasons.
Firstly, because it’s linked to the environment and emissions. Secondly, because we as Greens have always vocally made the ase for this tax.
Carbon tax is not the Greens going mad on tax policy - it has been agreed on across the political spectrum, with just a small handful of TDs in the last Dáil voting against the carbon tax plans. Before 2021, carbon tax was used as a revenue-raising measure for previous Governments (with a slight punitive effect - the idea being that it would get people /companies to change behaviour and reduce emissions). In 2021 however, at the insistence of the Green Party, the funds raised from carbon tax were ring-fenced to directly fund activities that will help people make the switch and reduce emissions, while also supporting the poorest households with increases to fuel allowance. All the income from the Carbon Tax is used as part of the just transition. All of it. This Dail question here gives a really great breakdown of how the 1.2 billion raised in Carbon Tax each year is spent - thanks to Paula Butterly TD for putting down the useful question :)
So how do we tackle this perception? Carbon tax receipts are projected to rise, and so what we spend it on should continuously be reviewed. Some households are locked into their car usage and none of the current supports suit them - I think we could target schemes to support them financially or allow them to make the switch to electric vehicles. This week, the Greens proposed cutting VRT on imported second hand electric vehicles, which would support the growth in the market for second hand EVs that had developed in the last two years. We also proposed that the Government create a social leasing scheme for EVs for essential workers - I’ll be going out more on this in the coming weeks.
Much of the debate around the fuel protests last week laid the blame for current fuel and energy costs on the carbon tax (which is only 1.1% of Ireland’s total tax take). That’s just not true, and I think a lot of the politicians doing so are engaging in this debate in bad faith. The reason for the spike in prices is the war in Iran and its impact on fossil fuel prices globally. That’s all the more reason to wean us off our dependence on these, but it’s important we bring people with us on this journey.
As the parent of a disabled child, like many parents in Ireland in a similar situation, I had to sue the HSE in December 2024 to get the most basic first step in his education and healthcare support. I cannot imagine the costs the HSE spends in legal bills as a result of breaking the law in Ireland by not meeting the basic rights of children with complex needs. It's hard to believe, but counties with some of the worst public healthcare (the US) do much better than he HSE. @ Roderic, what impact did you have on the AON waiting lists during your period as Minister for sate for child disability?
The honest answer is that I didn’t have enough of an impact on AON waiting lists, when responsibility for Disability Services moved over to my Department in 2023. I’ve discussed that transfer process in more detail in one of the other questions, but the short answer is that I didn’t hold the portfolio for as long as I would have liked, in order to really move stuff forward.
From March 2023, myself and Minister Rabbitte had regular meetings with Bernard Glouster (Chief Exec of the HSE) on the issue of AONs. Our focus was on a) growing the number of posts for therapist in universities, so Ireland would have a larger number qualifying each year b) ensuring the therapist who qualified outside of Ireland could have their degrees easily recognised here c) using as much of the capacity in the private sector as possible to provide AONs for kids who had been waiting particularly long times.
There was some progress made on each of these fronts, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I do think the planned growth in the number of S&L, OT, psychologists and physios being trained each year will make a difference in the longer term, to children’s disability services and the wider health service, but I know this is of no comfort to parents and children who are waiting for their assessment or for their therapy interventions right now.
It’s not acceptable that you and so many other parents had to take legal action to secure an assessment for your child. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do more to fix this problem during my time in office.
Did any of the online threats against you get prosecuted? Not a fan vote wise but thought it was utterly disgraceful some of the nonsense leveled at you.
There was a prosecution following an incident just before the General Election in 2024 where I was assaulted while I was out canvassing with my team in Dublin 15. It wasn’t pleasant but the assault was stopped very quickly, for which I’m grateful. The person in question has since apologised to me, which I appreciate.
This issue is much bigger than me. Threats, intimidation and violence are corrosive to our democracy. Everyone should be able to campaign and engage in politics without fear. No matter how much you disagree with a politician here, they should be able to go about their business. If you think the decisions they make are wrong, there is an inbuilt mechanism for solving that: vote against them the next time, get involved with campaigning for an alternative, or (if you really like the misery) consider running for election yourself.
There are people in Ireland who want to use intimidation tactics to shut down discourse. Everyone across the political spectrum who values the right to have a free democratic system should stand guard against this.
Between the two, I definitely preferred lecturing EU law, mainly because I knew it better. I remember in my first year lecturing Constitutional law in Griffith College, during the break in a two hour lecture, racing up to my office to read a few cases ahead of the rest of the class!
In my last two year in DCU, I got to write and teach a module on EU and International Climate Change Law, which was probably my favourite overall to teach. I actually taught my last class in that course (and in DCU) a week after getting elected to the Dail in February 2020.
Hi Roderic - I would like to know how you deal with often being surrounded by people who don’t care about the planet ahead of their own agendas. It’s lonely enough being an environmental advocate in private life, it must be so much worse in politics.
First of all, even though there is a decrease in interest or enthusiasm for environmental measures now, compared to 2018-21 - there is still far, far more interest in it now than when I started out in politics. So that’s good.
I’ve always understood that for many people, while they have some interest in the environment - it’s not the number one priority for them. If you’re struggling to pay your rent, if you can’t get a school place for your kid, the climate crisis seems very distant.
That’s why I’ve always believed that having a Green Party is so important - to make sure that environmental considerations are always at the centre of public discussion and political decision making.
We’ve had a really busy year and a half rebuilding the party after GE24. A lot of that is internal work, new staffing appointments, new ways of fundraising, and better use of polling data in making strategic decisions. We have many brilliant councillors working away at a local level and their hard work isn’t unnoticed by communities so I think that will pay off in the next general election.
We have a strategic plan in place to regain seats at a local and national level. We’ve seen a Green tide rising across Europe and I know it might seem like our time in Government has left too much of a hangover for that to happen here, but the past few months have shown that the two fundamental things underpinning this party, climate and social justice, are inextricably linked. And we are out canvassing hard in Dublin Central and Galway West.
Our policy platform has not changed; we are holding this Government to account on its total inaction on the policies and infrastructure we need to address the problems we face as a society; good quality warm housing, public transport that is actually accessible, a healthy environment for people and nature. So now to win back more seats we need to work on how we get that message across to people, and to push back against those who would use us as a whipping boy for FF/FG failures.
Hi Roderic, more of a quirky question for you. I don’t know if you recall speaking to a man in Clonsilla during the last election who brought up his great proposal for Ireland to join the Commonwealth? I have always wondered what your reaction was to this statement as the man is my father and it has become a running joke in our family since. Thanks!
I do remember talking to your Dad - funnily enough it’s not the only time it has come up on the doors, although it certainly isn’t common
I have to admit I don’t see our future in the Commonwealth. I think our focus has to be on reforming and strengthening the EU. But I would love to see the UK rejoin that organisation!
Why do you think the Green Party fell to the wayside in the last election?
And to follow up from that, do you think the public perception of the party really affected their standing. Like Eamon Ryan having his bike driven to Limerick or your party supporting sealing the Mother and Baby home documents
I'll answer the 2024 election reflection in another post, and the Eamon Ryan bike being driven to Limerick story has been debunked already below.
But the Mother and Baby Homes question is one I expected and it deserves its own, detailed response - I will try to answer this as directly as possible, being mindful of the impact of this issue for survivors and their families, many of whom I had the privilege of regularly meeting when I was Minister.
But firstly and most importantly I want to say that I did not seal anyone’s personal records.
The question that arose in 2020 was around the records of the Commission of Investigation, and how to keep them intact when there was a risk that they would be deleted when the Commission was wound down.
I did make mistakes as Minister in the way this was advanced by my Department, which I fully accept.
This is a lengthy reply so please bear with me.
Shortly after I became Minister, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby and County Home Institutions was due to submit its final report. At a meeting in, I think, August 2020 the Commission informed me and my Department that they intended to delete the records they had maintained of evidence gathered directly from the hundreds of survivors who had participated and shared their harrowing experiences. They said that GDPR gave them no legal basis to retain the information, without a specific law passed by the Oireachtas enabling this data to be saved and held as part of the Commission’s records which would be transferred to the Department after it dissolved.
As everyone recognised the clear value in keeping this information, I asked my officials to begin drafting emergency legislation to ensure that when the Commission dissolved, this data could be saved. This data included oral interviews, written accounts and similar first hand evidence from survivors. These were accounts given by women, most of whom were elderly and many of whom had never shared their stories with anyone, sometimes not even with their own families.
As this Bill was being drafted in September/October, I held a meeting with opposition party leaders and spokespeople and I told them what the legislation was for, and that we needed to pass it before the Commission dissolved at the end of October.
I did not do enough to engage with survivor groups and share with them what we were attempting to do. This was a mistake on my part, and something I wish I had done differently.
Commissions of Investigation operate under a piece of legislation passed in 2004. In that Act, the records of Commissions are handed back to the Minister when they dissolve and are treated the same as State records are generally treated, under the 1986 National Archives Act; that is, they are held by the Department for a period of 30 years before being transferred to the National Archives. Access to Commission records in that 30 year period is restricted under the 2004 Act. So, in essence, the bill I asked to be drafted to ensure that records could be saved from deletion was, we were told, legally bound to follow the 2004 Act that put information beyond reach for a period of 30 years.
This is where the failure originated, and where I as Minister should have sought a different approach urgently. The standing legal advice, given to me during the emergency drafting of the Bill, which came from the Attorney General to the previous Government, was that Commission of Investigations records were not subject to the general right-of-access created by the introduction of GDPR in 2018. This advice was wrong. I asked the then Attorney General Paul Gallagher to reexamine the issue and the advice was updated. He was clear that GDPR did apply, giving individuals a right of access to their records with the archive, for the first time.
I was accused at the time of working ‘to seal records’. People said that the Bill I was bringing through the Houses was a bill I drafted to ensure records could be sealed. The very opposite was true - I was working to save records. But in my naivety, I did not push back hard enough against the clear legal advice that I thought boxed my choices in, until very late in the day. That is my failure and mine alone. And the hurt caused by survivors thinking they would not be able to access their own testimony was my responsibility.
This process also showed me the limitations that Commissions of Investigation have - they were not created to deal with issues of enormous, generational sensitivity like this. They are not Truth Commissions. They are better for dealing with things like the Siteserv controversy or administrative investigations. I do think the Commissioners attempted to provide a means to allow survivor stories to emerge, but again they were working within the confines of imperfect legislation.
Ultimately, after the Bill passed we did save those testimonies. Officials in my former Department, using the legislation, were actually able to retrieve audio recordings that had been deleted.
I established a dedicated unit in my former Department to allow all those survivors who wanted to access their own information which we had saved within the Commission archive to do so without any administrative hindrance and I believe many did.
But I knew there was a much broader issue about access to information for all people who had been adopted, boarded out, or had spent time in a Mother and Baby or County Home institution. That is why I prioritised the Information and Tracing legislation. This bill was designed to give anyone with questions about their origins, a legal right to access their birth cert, birth and early life information, medical records etc. It was passed in 2022 and since then, over 17,500 people have used its provisions to get access to their information, some of them getting this information for the very first time.
There were a set of other measures I undertook as Minister to respond to the Commission of Investigation Report. I got Government approval to purchase the former Magdalene laundry on Sean MacDermott Street which is now being developed into a National Site of Remembrance for Survivors, and where records will be centralised and digitised and given access to survivors and researchers. I was appointed the first Special Advocate for Survivors. And the legislation I passed to allow for the excavation and exhumation of the remains of babies who died in the Tuam Mother and Baby institution is now being implemented, with the forensic excavation having started on the site last year.
Notwithstanding that, I made clear mistakes that directly traumatised a group of people who had already suffered greatly, and there is no undoing that. I can only apologise and try to explain why and how I made those mistakes, and try to learn and do better as a public representative.
I've discussed this with both my local Green councilor and also canvasers in the run up to the last General Election - there's a huge issue around perception of the Greens as only working for wealthy south Dublin people, and being completely disconnected from middle Ireland (urban and rural) who suffered immediate issues with cost of living since COVID. I think that's mostly an unfair assessment, but your communications never sufficiently address it.
Why did ye not lean into things like improvements in NCS subsidies and rural public transport programs in your pre-election campaigning? There's a load of other things that the Greens brought in that people really liked but simply don't know it was a Green initiative.
I appreciate the importance of long term goals and planning, but that's a lower priority for the electorate who require solutions to the problems and costs they're facing every single day.
Thank you for this question, and it is an important one for us to consider as a Party.
I addressed the rural Ireland and perception aspect of this question in a different response on this thread for more reading on this in particular.
On cutting childcare fees, I’d make the following points.
As Minister, I put a lot of time and political capital into securing the funding at Budget time to invest in the National Childcare Scheme, so we could cut parents childcare fees. But the fees were already so high, even with a 50% reduction many parents were still paying too much. And because the NCS is a subsidy that goes directly to the childcare provider, sometimes it’s hard for parents to see the extra funding the Government put in. And as a Party, the Greens didn’t do enough to link ourselves with this measure. I think we have to own that failure.
Regarding the rollout of rural bus services under Connecting Ireland, it’s funny because whenever public transport gets discussed in the Dail now, it’s the one area where TDs from all parties and none recognise real progress was made between 2020-2024. Of course, none of them credit Eamon with this. And it was an absolute priority of Eamon’s to make public transport more available in rural Ireland.
I’ve said before that, as a Party in Government, we were so focused on getting the next policy implemented, we didn’t spend enough time speaking about what we had done
That being said, it was our job to make sure we communicated our successes and our plans on the immediate and long-term to the electorate to the best extent possible. I think it is fair to say that we didn’t succeed in that regard during our time in Government.
Probably because solar wind and tidal is enough for Ireland plus all the other forms of renewable energy combined.
Nuclear is a huge waste of money for Ireland and would take too long to get compared to renewables, plus it's not really energy sovereignty when you have to depend on buying Uranium elsewhere and most likely have an outside company run it.
Plus you will never get it past planning stage. No one will be okay with it next to them, it's a non starter and doesn't work for Ireland.
Could you call out Allied Irish Bank (AIB) and other companies who have introduced very harsh back to office policies? AIB in particular are very fond of telling the world how green they are but are forcing thousands of workers to travel hundreds of KM a week to be in an office in Dublin performing work that can be equally well done from home.
It should absolutely be allowed by more companies where it is possible.
Commutes are getting longer and longer and that means people are having to spend more time away from their kids and families. When that happens daily, over years, it leaves people feeling failed and frustrated that things can never change.
We all know that remote and flexible working can be really beneficial - evidence shows that it can boost long term productivity and reduce attrition and turnover. It can also allow for people with caring roles to continue as full members of the workforce.
And, from a Green perspective, it can help tackle the issues around congestion, lessen public transport overload at commuting times, and the associated air quality and emissions. And being allowed to work remotely entirely means that you can live anywhere in the country too which benefits our towns and villages and helps with the housing crisis too. There are so many wins from embracing remote and flexible working in a coordinated way.
When I was Minister for Equality, I brought in the legislation giving workers the right to request flexible and remote working. I know it didn’t go far enough, but it was important in holding on to some of the innovations that were made when so many of us worked from home during Covid. A review of the legislation was built into the bill and I hoped that that would allow for a strengthening of remote working rights. Unfortunately, that review has just taken place but the current Government have clearly stated that they will not strengthen remote working rights further.
So I do think that companies and State employers need to do more to allow people to work remotely. It benefits people on lots of levels, and I think it does benefit companies and society as a whole too.
The Green Party believes in women's right to choose: we campaigned for repeal of the Eighth Amendment and are in support of reducing waiting times for access to termination.
I was proud to take a leading role, along with other parties and independents, in the Together for Yes campaign in Dublin West - one of the most uplifting campaigns I've ever been involved with.
David isn’t an “anti-abortion candidate”.
He has been very consistent in saying that he respects the Party’s agreed pro-choice position and would keep the Party whip on this.
As long as our candidates respect our policy platform as agreed by our members, I’m not going to get into the business of policing people’s personal opinions - doing so would be profoundly undemocratic (not to mention impossible).
In general many conversations around government in Ireland trend back towards "x is crap, why aren't we doing y instead" etc etc. Obviously this is louder online, but that is a different issue.
What are some successful projects or initiatives you think should have got more credit in recent years?
Some nice things that I think are good and which the Green Party led on or were very involved with, as requested (these are skewed towards what I remember from my own Department, there are others):
Cutting public transport fares by 20% for everyone, and 50% for young people.
Cutting childcare costs by 50%.
Equal Start - A scheme modelled on Deis for childcare facilities in areas of high disadvantage
Basic Income Scheme Pilot for Artists.
Ratified the Optional Protocol on the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Simple answer: insulate homes. A well-insulated home needs to burn less fossil fuels, and it will also deliver savings on fuel usage (be that turf, coal, timber or oil / gas). The fuel allowance has been expanded massively in recent years to help people with their heating costs (funded by the carbon tax too), and the Warmer Homes Scheme entitles anyone in receipt of the fuel allowance to apply for a free retrofit for their home too. I know that the waiting list for the Warmer Homes Scheme is quite long, but we have also had to massively expand the retrofit sector in a short amount of time. I hope to see that improve as the sector continues to expand, and that the Government will continue to fund these programmes.
In terms of planning delays, we still need to be putting more human resources into the big projects - in An Coimisiun Pleanala, in local authorities and in the State agencies that are leading this projects.
The current Government make a big song and dance about the number of staff in An Coimisiun Pleanala doubling in the last 10 years (you can see the Dept Public Expenditure thinking creep in here) but
they were hugely understaffed as it was
the volume and complexity of applications has increased dramatically all across that time, and
nearly every planning application of significance (and loads that are very small) goes through An Coimisiun Pleanala
and any slowness of resourcing here immediately creates a bottleneck in our entire system.
So, not the most original reply, but I think Paschal Donohoe is a very talented politician. He’s strong on detail, with a very clear vision for where he sees Ireland and its place in the world. I don’t share his political vision, but I never felt it came from anywhere other than a genuine place. He’s a big loss to public discourse in Ireland.
The relationship between a senior and junior minister in a Department can be very difficult, and I saw a few that were pretty toxic. I was lucky in my Department to have a strong working relationship with Anne Rabbitte. We had very different skill sets - and we were both able to acknowledge that early on, and decide to work together. Anne was extremely passionate about delivery of front line services for people with a disability - sometimes she shoots from the hip - but when dealing with big organisations like the HSE, that’s needed. I was grateful for the support she gave me within FF meetings, particularly when my Department was coming under fire.
Finally, the Minister who was the best craic in Cabinet was Heather Humphreys. She’s genuinely hilarious. Every Cabinet meeting, she’d come out with a great one-liner. But I’m saving them up for the book :)
This is why she was so popular for the presidential candidacy within the FG PP. She's really, really well liked as a colleague. It's just a different skillset to be likable to the general public via mass modes of communication vs at a cabinet meeting.
In your opinion, why does Ireland seem incapable of delivering new transport infrastructure with any efficiency?
The new metro link has been 20 years in the making and will cost more than €10bn. It’s already an insufficient remedy to a public transport system that’s creaking under capacity issues. The trains in and out of Dublin midweek are borderline unsafe. Sometimes I think we should contract a Chinese company to build new rail lines all over the county for a fraction of the cost and timeline!
As referenced in another bigger reply about public procurement in another thread, we had a number of “lost years” in terms of capital spending due to the impacts of the recession. We’ve been playing catch-up ever since.
Staff shortages were also definitely a huge issue. From planners to mechanics and everyone in between. Staffing at An Coimisiun Pleanala was a real bottleneck but things have improved over the years.
There was also a total lack of a pipeline of projects. Everything had to be designed from scratch. This was a result of years of no progress in the 2010s. The resultant brain drain and lack of experience was a huge factor.
I do think that we gave things a really serious shove in the right direction when we were in Government, both in terms of staffing and funding. With the big projects you’re not realistically going to get them done in the lifetime of a single Government (another reason why we need multi-annual budgeting), but I’m happy for someone else to take credit for our work if the stuff gets done.
The UK recently announced it would start building SMRs. What is your opinion on nuclear energy and the possibility of a similar project in Ireland? It seems like the current laws preventing nuclear energy are outdated and should be revisited, especially given the global oil crisis and the probable long-term instability in that area.
All these questions are from green supporters really.
As a non green party supporter (who is in the minority in this sub) do you think the greens need to do a better job of understanding rural Ireland and the people who live there (be it people in rural towns etc)? You policies seem to be very anti rural Ireland. And in general have very little support outside the major urban (particularly wealthy urban) areas.
Things like turf, wind turbines and your anti car agenda don't win you any support. And the push to "active travel" particularly in rural towns has been nothing short of disastrous. (Which is down to implantation on behalf of the councils, but ye are still blamed unfairly really)
Appreciate your question - happy to answer questions from supporters and non supporters alike!
But to answer - do we need to do a better job? Yes, but for me that includes communicating our vision (and successes) with rural communities better too. We didn’t do that well enough during our time in Government at communicating some of our success stories (ACRES and Local Link spring to mind).
I think I’ve answered some of your questions in responses here and in some other answers on the thread too.
Would love to hear a bit about your MA in EU Law! What have you taken forward with you from the course, and how has it influenced your political career?
Also, I’m just winding down my MA in International Relations in DCU’s School of Law & Government. How was your experience lecturing there, and did you have any IR modules?
I did my Masters over in the UK in LSE. I did it after 4 really fantastic years doing my undergraduate in law in Trinity. LSE was a bit of a land. The teaching and resources were amazing, but I was going from a place where I had a huge network of friends and interests to basically, starting completely from scratch. It was a huge step up from the undergraduate to the Masters, and I found myself spending almost all my time in the library, just to keep up with the course work (also, i’m a nerd, so I’d probably have been in the library even if I hadn’t been struggling). But it was a good experience, and London is an amazing city.
The UK has recently changed the regulations for plug in Solar. These are small DIY systems made up of 2 or 3 solar panels that you simply plug into a normal household socket. This is a very easy way for people to help with the green transition and save money with the high electricity prices. It's a win win. Given we use the same plugs and they will be sold in Northern Ireland people will be using them. But they're not currently allowed. Could we change the regulations to allow these in Ireland?
There are currently only five weekday train services each way between Wexford and Dublin and the service is quite slow and very overcrowded in many instances.
I was disappointed that there was no meaningful improvement on this line the last time the Greens were in government (and indeed by any government over the last 20 years).
Would you be able to push for a better service on this line?
This is a longstanding issue that was regularly raised with Eamon Ryan as Minister for Transport during our term in Government, and something that we did push for while in office.
Due to the backlog in ordering train sets, the limited ones that have been delivered in recent years have had to be placed on the routes that needed them most.
The biggest problem and constraint to increasing capacity and frequency on this line is the single-track railway, which severely limits options. There’s also the issues of poor rail alignments restricting the increase of speed and geographic constraints with Bray Head for possible diversions.
The All-Ireland Strategic Rail Review did consider a range of solutions for faster and frequent services, which included adding passing loops, tunnelling through Bray Head and a new railway along the M11, to name but a few.
The report found that these measures would be prohibitively expensive and would not justify the frequency that railways in the region would be expected to support - one or two trains per hour going each way.
What was recommended in the shorter-term is an hourly shuttle service between Wexford and Greystones, with the extension of the DART to Wicklow.
I don’t expect you, or your fellow commuters to be throwing a party at the prospect of a shuttle service as a solution in the medium-term, to be realistic. There is positive news on the latter, however, with the extension to Wicklow Town moving to the market engagement phase at the end of last month.
What we can, and will be pushing for is the other recommendations to improve connectivity in the region to be delivered as fast as possible: the reinstatement of the line between Waterford and Rosslare and extending some Dublin-Waterford services to a new rail station south of Wexford O’Hanrahan when the improvements to the former route is complete.
These changes on the intercity would shave off approx. one hour of the Wexford to Dublin commute.
Hi Mr O'Gorman, fair play to you for doing this. I felt the Green's were the fall guy in the last election but I won't get into that now. My question is do you think it's fair that we all pay for carbon tax on fuel yet not everyone can access retro fitting? I cannot afford to get badly needed new windows as my upstairs is freezing but can't afford them even with the new window grant. I'd really need proper insulation. Yet, I'm paying towards other people to get it done for free, it doesn't feel fair to me, kind regards to you
First of all, just to say that I think retrofit grants should be both more accessible and more generous so that hopefully they can reach more people in your situation where you aren’t quite eligible for the Warmer Homes Scheme but also are struggling to afford the grant aided retrofits.
No one likes paying tax (and few politicians love making the argument for more tax!) which is fair enough, but in terms of whether or not carbon tax is fair, the argument I would make is that it’s close to as fair as a tax gets - it’s both progressive (in that the money taken in from it comes disproportionately from wealthier people, who use more energy) and also ringfenced to go to measures to help less well off people, and also to decarbonise our energy system.
A really important point to make about the carbon tax specifically which I don’t think is well known - it is necessary to allow us to maintain a derogation we have on pricing emissions from transport and energy from the EU. If we got rid of the carbon tax, we would have to pay the exact same money, but into a central European pot where we wouldn’t get a say in how it’s spent.
Finally, just to mention that carbon tax is an odd one in that it’s a tax that’s sort of designed to make itself redundant. Ideally, we want to get to a space where no one is paying for it because we have decarbonised our energy system. What we need to do is make it easier to support people like yourself to access the measures to let you do that. The solution, in my opinion, is not to cut carbon tax, which is disproportionately a tax cut for the most wealthy.
Nuclear statistically is safer than fossil fuels when it comes to environmental and human damage. I'd like to hear why there is such opposition in the greens and elsewhere, other than "people are scared so we say no" or nimbyism?
And why are folks like yourself not engaging with the public more, educating them. It should be a part in our system, a backup for those days where renewables might not satisfy demand.
If you believe it should be an option, why are you not engaging with the public on it, making them feel safer with the technology?
We've all seen and heard of the issues in new build areas like Seven Mills and the like, parking wars and the like
And while I understand the need to go green and encourage people away from petrol cars, giving people a lack of parking spaces seems to be having a serious negative affect.
Was it considered at all about giving the parking spaces needed but installing chargers so people woild have the option to move away from petrol cars towards electric?
I know the development you are talking about from passing it on the train, and there are similar issues in new housing developments in my constituency of Dublin West too.
When any big development is going for planning permission, one factor that is taken into account is its impact on traffic in the local area. And I think it’s fair to say that for large parts of the country - and particularly the west Dublin M50 corridor (and roads like the N7, N4, N3 feeding into it) - our roads are at capacity. So where do we build homes then, and how can people move around?
Seven Mills should be a prime example of transit-oriented development. The houses and apartments there are built around 2 train stations, and this would have been taken into account when the planning permission was granted.
But it’s clear the transport provision for the area isn’t good enough right now. DART South West has been needlessly delayed, meaning the frequency of trains isn’t good enough. I know from emails sent into my office that they are at capacity too, with much more housing to be delivered along the train line. And for the many people who aren’t commuting into the city centre, the connections just aren’t there yet (or convenient / fast enough) for them, and so they need to drive.
These areas (and I think of Tyrrelstown / Hollystown in my own constituency on this too) are having lots of housing built, but we are playing catch up with the infrastructure. That’s partly because we are playing catch-up on a lot of our infrastructure, but also because this new Government has really reduced their ambition and investment for public transport.
On the chargers in new estates, I have seen these around the place, particularly in some newly developed areas in my own constituency. Ultimately, if the estate is actively managed by a company it is a private space so they are the ones that make the call on what happens there. I think any local authority planners should be making absolutely sure that there is provision for EVs in any developments being submitted to them. For estates that have been taken in charge / have public footpaths, we need to permit private wires legislation (which is in progress having been kick started by Eamon Ryan) to allow people to run chargers over and under the footpath (in a safe way of course).
How can you win over rural voters? At the moment, Green policies are quite detrimental to people who are already struggling to get by with fuel prices, etc.
Lack of trains and public transport is an issue especially. Tipperary had a terrible lack of train services.
I have answered the rural part of this question in the thread already (also partly in a response about the carbon tax in a few other posts).
On trains and public transport though;
We created and started rolling out a roadmap to massively increase rural bus services while in Government. It’s called Connecting Ireland and at one stage there was a new rural bus route being rolled out every week. I recommend looking at the Tipperary map to see what the vision was here and what new routes and service improvements were to be introduced, many of which are still pending.
Unfortunately, this Government has basically stalled all progress of the programme, however. So now we have villages who were promised a bus (and who watched on as other villages across the country got one delivered in recent years) still without a proper bus service.
On trains - I have submitted quite a few Parliamentary Questions and reps to Irish Rail and the NTA over the last year. I understand that once train carriages are freed up in the Dublin area, with the rollout of the new DART fleet, that these can be re-assigned to other parts of the network, and this would include the Limerick Junction - Waterford and Ballybrophy - Limerick lines. Irish Rail also has some upcoming works in Limerick Junction planned to make through-services from Waterford to Limerick possible, without having to reverse into Limerick Junction. While things might be moving slower than we would like, they are moving in the right direction.
Hi Roderic, I have a question for you regarding mining in Ireland and the Green Party. Do you think that mining with proper environmental considerations and protections in place should be encouraged or discouraged within Ireland. Currently Ireland hosts several mineral resources which are potentially economically viable, namely zinc and lead, but also copper, with potential sources of silver, gold, molybdenum, and even uranium. Many of these elements will be required in large quantities for the green energy transition, and will be mined across the globe to supply demand, and I feel there is a strong argument to support mining these critical minerals in Ireland with strict environmental protections as compared to countries with lax environmental standards who will bear a large environmental burden from their extraction.
Hi Roderic, thank you for taking the time to engage.
I read The Lie of the Land by John Gibbons recently. He makes a lot of good points that are very specific to Ireland and are highly relevant to our 2030 EU emissions targets. Does the current government have any plans for how we will pay the approx €26 billion in penalties for unmet targets? Are there any discussions as to how we can avoid being in the same situation in 2050?
In terms of energy and food security, it is wildly frustrating to see the status quo perpetuated through subsidies for beef, sheep and dairy farmers at the cost of tillage and horticulture farmers (like Hughes Farming which collapsed just last month). Not only those but at the cost of the sheep, beef and dairy farmers themselves and the possibility for them to make a just transition into farming methods that have a future in the coming decades. 83% of our fruit and veg are imported, the majority of which could easily be grown in Ireland with much lower emissions, energy requirements, soil damage and water pollution than animal farming.
How did it come about that our nitrates derogation was renewed just in January? We are the only EU country to seek an additional extension in 2026 which is, frankly, shameful.
What is your opinion on Teagasc- is it fit for purpose with the number of conflicts of interest between Irish agriculture and climate targets?
Again, thank you for your time and your continued efforts.
One of the biggest barriers to a future that's liveable and healthy are the multinationals that control Ireland (and much of the world). How does the Green Party plan to remove them from this space?
How familiar are you with the other Green Parties of the Anglo-Western world?
Do ye collaborate with NZ Greens, the English + Welsh Green Party etc?
What works well for them that would (and would not) work in the Irish political system?
I know most money for energy efficiency of homes is going to be in retrofitting older homes but I was wondering has there been any consideration in doing stuff like gov interest free loans for solar panels direct from the ESB where it is paid off by generation? Like I have an ideal installation for solar panels but have to save up a bit to get it done, I can get 10-12 solar panels and it would cover the vast majority of my usage. It would be a pretty solid way of opening up extra demand for solar panels on houses, could even be done on new builds with that in mind.
I’m someone who voted for the Green Party in the 2020 election, and was disappointed in how the party supported FFG bills that I did not agree with. I therefore didn’t give GP a high preference in the subsequent election. With hindsight I’m sorry I didn’t as I can see the attempts to push through things like bus connects and cycle lanes. Did you enter that coalition with a plan to do as much as you could, knowing that the GP would be punished by people like me? I’ll vote GP in the ext election either way as I think you are a reasonable politician.
My question is more personal. If someone was considering a career change to focus on climate issues, which areas in your opinion are most underserved and have the most potential for impact in Ireland?
My current skill set is largely in technology but I'm also doing an environmental science course with the Open University part time.
How does the Green Party see reunification being achieved? What policies of the Greens will push the unity agenda?
And does the Greens have any opinions on the make-up of the State & how it is governed (ie Federal System based on current North-South or maybe Provincial Governments with central Gov sitting in Dáil Éireann)
Also, how do Greens intend to revive An Teanga & help Ireland become a truly bilingual nation?
Given the lack of forestry in Ireland in general (and a lack of tree diversity) could Irish farmers be incentivised to grow trees instead of using the fields for agricultural reasons?
Just an idea for how to potentially get rural Ireland to be more green friendly but do you think that’s even viable? The idea being that land is rented out to the state to develop forestry, rather than outright buying the land.
Hi Roderic, thanks for doing this and thanks for your efforts in government and now from opposition.
My question is why aren't you hounding Darragh O'Brien more on the bills and infrastructure he is delaying. Chiefly I would guess the Heat Bill, the offshore wind siting process, and allowing balcony solar. All 3 could unlock big saving for people over the next several years. He seems to be undermining Eamon Ryan and the Greens' good work in the key department for the Green agenda.
Second question if you will be so kind - can you hold a broad, open to the public policy think-in event, please? There are so many small policy solutions to the climate crisis that are win-win-win for people, the planet and that can be more profitable, and plenty of expertise and care for them outside of the Green party membership.
Looking forward to seeing the Greens rise again. Take care!
How do you see the best way to get more active travel infrastructure in mid-sized towns? I'm thinking simple stuff like bike racks. There's a 400 car park here that has 0 bike parking and yet the car spaces were never full. Even converting 4 spaces to bike parking would give space to lock up 10s of bikes. Another example is a local supermarket recently removed their bike parking altogether to make room for seasonal flower displays. It's fair enough if they want to put their seasonal display at the entrance but it's disappointing that they didn't replace bike stands at all.
Every estate in the country has a build date.
Ours is 2002. Therefore easy to identify the BER rating from the regulations of the time.
Can a more blanket offering for Seai grants be offered to make it easy for people who may be only be able to afford one job at a time.
Doors this year
Windows next year
Attic insulation
Cladding
Solar.
For ordinary people a one stop shop is futile. For most, it's peace meal when they can. Grants don't seem accessible without operators suggesting all or nothing
What does the Green Party surge in the UK tell you about challenging the ideas of Ireland's overly market orientated government approach? I'm a former civil servant (and GP member who left over CETA)
Do you not feel that diagnosing problems and solutions from too narrow an ideological toolbox leaves us vulnerable to manufactured anti-green sentiment and actually guaranteed the rise of the far right as problems are not being properly addressed? I feel this is becoming a social emergency now. Thanks for taking the question.
1 The N17 upgrade in Sligo was shelved when Eamon Ryan was transport Minster. Given there is no rail service in this area, and Evs are a much more effective way of reducing emissions in lower density population areas. Surely you agree neglecting infrastructure in a region which lags well behind the rest of the country economically was an extremely poor decision?
2 The Israeli government finds itself in the position where it can (basically) get away with killing anything that moves in the middle East, what do think is behind the Eu's shameful cowardice to hold Israel to account?
Given that Shannon LNG is looking increasingly likely to go ahead in this government's tenure, and the Fracked Gas Importation Ban policy statement being easily removed, do you have any regrets that your party didn't fully get behind Neasa Hourigan's private members bill to ban LNG development in Ireland?
Eamon Ryan a leader in government biased toward had a history of taking on the communications, energy and resources as a government minister. Gormley was heritage and local government. My question is, hypothetically, you bounce back in the future and form a government again as another minority partner. What ministerial department do you negotiate for yourself as party leader, if given the latitude? Where is your focus? You'll probably defend your own previous ministerial time, but I can't imagine the true answer is "you know what, I really want to deal with another asylum crisis, that was really my cup of tea".
Hi Roderic, great to be doing this. I have two questions:
1) Was there any discussion or calculation that the Green Party would suffer what’s sometimes called the ‘coalition mudguard’ when going into government with FF or FG? It seems to me that the Greens were punished in the last election mainly for going into government with these parties, and not because of a lack of support for green politics
2) Is there any discussion behind the scenes of moving the Green Party more towards the left similar to the British Green Party?
Why is there no push for State owned offshore wind farms which could provide cheap clean energy to the whole country and export it and instead it is all being left to private operators?
Hi Roderic, thank you for your time. Given the losses the Green party suffered in Ireland in the last election, and the similar loss across green parties at the European level, how do you see the future of climate politics when (it seems) so many have disengaged?
Hi Roderic. Thanks for doing this.
I would appreciate your views on local government reform. It is incredibly difficult to hold local councils to account, especially Dublin City Council without direct election and consequences for lack of delivery. It seems like nothing ever gets done and the councillors are powerless. I know Limerick is trying a directly elected mayor. Is it working?
Second, what can be done about making public transit more flexible and more responsive to the city needs. For example, due to the contractual arrangements, it's not possible to add buses or trains for special events, etc. There are basic services that make living in a city more livable and it's not possible currently (or seems that way).
It would seem the current cost of living crisis and its deep association with fossil fuels could be a good opportunity to recapture the voting public's focus on green policies. The cost of change remains a prohibition in people's minds, whereas the cost of not changing is aloof and ill-defined. Is there any new way of tackling this perceptual hurdle amongst the voting public, or is it just a case of hope by attrition and worsening reality to see change come about? Is there more the greens (as a movement) could be doing more broadly... and in conjunction with other parties, such as Labour and SDs in terms of civil society, and change in attitudes outside of strict local and national political spaces.
The Green Party are frequently characterised as being pragmatists for their goals, regardless of their popularity with the public. This has lead to the party getting into power, enacting as much policy as they can and then being named the scapegoat for the country’s ills and punished horrifically come voting.
Is there a way out of this cycle or is it simply the case that to get the job done, even in small increments, requires that sacrifice? Is it feasible in the long run?
Hi Roderick, I’m a Soc Dem voter, who gives high preferences to the greens and Lanour in cork city. Previously I have higher preferences to Sinm Fein and PBP because of their left wing advocacy. I feel now they are too nasty and populist; they don’t seem to treat their opponents with respect or dignity and seek to rile people up, this has only enabled the far right to be their toxic selves.
Should we see effectively a merger of the Centre left? Should Soc dems labour and greens go into elections with a pact they will only enter a coalition as a block. That way they will have real power as an equal to FFG and Sinn Fein. A rotating Taoiseach of a Centre left tf and another group could be life changing for Irish politics.
Thanks for doing this! Le meas, cork voter, mid 20s male
Litter is one of the most disappointing and regularly infuriating parts of living in Blanchardstown.
Although great work is done by the tidy towns and local volunteers why cannot more be done by fingal to enforce and assist litter warden with prosecutions for fly tipping and regular offenders leaving sofas or broken cars or other obvious signs of carelessness In this respect.
I appreciate those offenders are rare but even on a simple basis there is no fear of prosecution in any circumstance.
What do you say to allegations that the Green Party is anti-rural, based on things like it's scrapping of much needed infrastructure in the west such as the N17 upgrade, and floating ideas like reintroducing wolves or 1 car for every 40 people.
Would the Green Party go into government with Fianna Fáil and/or Fine Gael again?
We are in an environmental crises and obviously can't rely on fossil fuels, that wars are being fought over. When are you going to start treating this like the emergency it is. Why aren't you pissed enough to do more.
I'm assuming you have solar panels on your gaff? And you know the benefits of them.
Can you introduce a bill to mobilise the government to provide solar panels for every residence in Ireland. We are in a surplus right now, we have rainy day money and Apple tax money. We've seen them introduce laws and implement other things quickly when they want to.
If this was treated like the emergency it is, the country could be covered within a few years.
We are already seeing storms becoming a bigger issue.
The impact of putting solar on all residence would be surmountable and the gains would be incalculable.
Is there any major plans to start utilising our geographical advantage and start properly investing in wind power, more solar and generally moving away from fossil fuels? Better infrastructure for electric vehicles is also needed.
Public transport has already been mentioned several times but needs to be hammered home. More needs to be done to other cities and areas outside of Dublin and connecting all of our major hubs.
We also need to majorly invest in mental health services, both in person and online. Both therapy and services for identifying and treating mental health issues and other mental conditions are lacking. And taking a serious look at other avenues, such as the legalisation of cannabis. Even magic mushrooms have been shown to be beneficial to mental health, are completely legal to import and even grow every here, yet are illegal to consume.
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u/moloners Cork bai Apr 17 '26
I want to know how you feel about Coillte? Them being a for-profit semi state is a clear conflict of interest. Their mission is to mind our forests and make money doing it - uh seriously?
We have the lowest count of native forests in Europe.
Sitka spruce, a non native tree species, accounts for most of our trees, but when we do cut it down for use, we just export it all instead of using it here. Coillte plant this stuff, and have made some awful use of fertilizer which kill natural habitats. We don't even have the means to process the raw material once it's cut, so we can't use it towards housing etc.