Small parties and Independents are going to be “crucial” and “absolutely pivotal” in the formation of the next government, Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has said.
The Dublin West TD appealed to the electorate to “stick with us”, adding that “we have delivered, and we’ve delivered in spades. So the Green Party represents the best value for your vote.
“We’re asking the Irish voters tomorrow to give us that number one vote. If you want to see us to continue to deliver we need that number one. This time around the number two, the number three, is not really going to work. We’re asking for that number one to continue that strong track record of delivery.”
Speaking at his party’s final press conference before the election on Friday, he said that when voting people would have to ask what sort of smaller party they wanted.
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Did they want a progressive party like the Greens “that shows it delivered on its priorities but also created stability? Or do you want parties that bring us to the right, whether it’s anti-climate, whether it’s anti-choice, whether it’s anti-equality, but also are so incoherent in themselves that you won’t have that element of stability as well”.
The Greens have been “demonstrating our track record of delivery of our policies and also stability, being a grown-up partner within the government”.
He said the Green Party worked well with its coalition partners and kept its fights “behind closed doors”. That was “what created such a stable government over the last 4½ years” and that was how coalition should work.
Dublin Central TD Neasa Hourican said the election campaign in the constituency “went from being probably the least interesting constituency in the country to all of a sudden the most interesting”.
Asked his view on the call by Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty for the electorate to “lend us your vote”, Mr O’Gorman said “I won’t be lending Pearse anything and I don’t think Green voters will” because Sinn Féin has “absolutely nothing to say on central issues like climate, like public transport; when you see how all over the place they are on Europe, for example, registering EU nationals here”.
He said that in the leaders’ TV debate “we saw how empty their migration policies are – one of the big challenges our country faces and Sinn Féin’s policy is just vacuous. They have no clue how or where people will be accommodated.”
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