Green Party (Ireland)

Green Party (Ireland)

The Green Party (Irish: Comhaontas Glas) is a green political party in Ireland. It was founded as the Ecology Party of Ireland in 1981 by Dublin teacher Christopher Fettes. The party became the Green Alliance in 1983 and in 1987 was renamed to its current title in English. Its leader is Eamon Ryan, Deputy Leader Catherine Martin and chairman Roderic O'Gorman.

Green Party candidates have been elected to all levels of representation; local, Dáil and European Parliament, and in 2007 the party gained its first representation in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Northern Ireland party having become a region of the Irish party in the previous year.

The Greens became part of the Irish government for the first time following the Irish general election, 2007, having agreed upon a programme for government in coalition with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. In the wake of the Irish financial crisis, the party came under pressure to withdraw its support for the administration. Party leader John Gormley called publicly in November 2010 for a general election in the state to be fixed by the latter half of January 2011, allowing time for the Oireachtas to pass legislation for European Union and International Monetary Fund financial support for Ireland; the date of the election was eventually set for March 2011. With further postponements threatened by Fianna Fáil, and increasingly dissatisfied with their larger coalition partner, the party announced its withdrawal from government on 23 January 2011. This brought forward the election date to 25 February 2011; in the process, all six Green Party TDs lost their seats. Following the 2011 Seanad Éireann election, the party no longer has any representatives in the Oireachtas. It has one representative in the Northern Ireland Assembly.