ON Sunday the membership of the Green Party will elect a new deputy leader with Inagh’s Senator Róisín Garvey facing off against Dublin TD Neasa Hourigan.
With the vote looming, Senator Garvey said she has had a good response from the members she has engaged with.
“Lots of people have been supporting me and think that I am well able,” she said on Wednesday.
She feels that the Green Party is not communicating its message effectively, and she says she is part of the solution. “A lot of people are looking at the messaging. We have succeeded a lot and delivered a lot as a small party in Government, probably more than any other small party has ever delivered in Government, but we haven’t got the kudos for it, and it wasn’t reflected in the local or the European elections. I bring the opportunity to change the message, being from outside Dublin.
“We want to be seen as a party that represents the whole of Ireland, not just cities or Dublin, we want to represent Northern Ireland, villages, towns and people living in the countryside. I have good experience of living in cities, but also I live where I was born and reared in Inagh, so I have the lived experience of the challenges that people face in living out the country.”
She also said that her achievements as a Senator show that she has something significant to offer.
“Outside of the geographical difference between me and Neasa, I also have a lot of experience of working within the Government, within the parliamentary party, on good projects and good wins. I worked with Roderic O’Gorman on reducing childcare reduction costs, I got the bill passed so that people wouldn’t need planning permission to put up solar panels, I got the half price fares for people under the age of 26 rolled out to everyone, not only students. Before you wouldn’t get the discount if you were a young person but not in college.
“I got Leap cards rolled out all across Ireland instead of just in the cities, and to increase footfall in the post offices, that’s where they were made available.”
She says that the Green Party has a lot to offer rural Ireland, despite many people who live outside the cities thinking otherwise.
“One of the main reasons I joined the Green Party was looking at my neighbours they are facing and the costs of inputs into farming. The loss of land due to flooding, the unpredictability of the weather, these are all huge concerns and I would link a lot of them back to the over dependence on fossil fuels.
“I also feel the large Ag lobby does not serve the small farmers of Co Clare. It serves big farmers and big Ag business. I don’t see any good strong lobby for small farmers and I want to be that lobby.”
She said that the Greens can be a friend to small farmers, and that they are often unfairly blamed for pollution.
“Business as usual is not serving smaller farmers. It’s leading to huge costs. They haven’t got the price of the nitrates anymore and we need to help them to do other things. They need help in diversifying,” she said.
“In Clare we have gone from 60 to 240 organic farmers, that is since the Green Party got funding increased for organic farming. I made sure that farmers could get 60% of a grant for putting solar panels on shed roofs. I just think we need to stop talking about farmers as if they are all the same.
A result from Sunday’s vote is expected at around 6pm.
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.