Neasa Hourigan joins race for Green Party deputy leadership

Dublin Central TD Neasa Hourigan has announced that she will contest the deputy leadership of the Green Party, setting up a contest with the Dún Laoghaire TD Ossian Smyth, who declared his interest last week.

Nominations close on Monday evening at 9pm by which time candidates for both the leadership and the deputy leadership must have secured 50 nominations from party members. Ms Hourigan told The Irish Times that she believed she had already secured the necessary support.

Both the contenders for the leadership, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman and junior agriculture minister Pippa Hackett passed the 50 threshold late last week.

In a post on the social media platform X at the weekend, Ms Hourigan said: “We are heading into a general election in the next few months or in the few months after that. And I think the nation will be quite rightly discussing what is the vision that political parties are putting in front of them in terms of how they see Ireland in five, ten, or 15 years.

“I think the Green Party have a fantastic answer to that question. I think we have policies that are exciting, we can implement that will make people’s lives better, which will support nature, which will address the climate crisis, will make our cities, our towns, our rural areas more liveable. And I think we should be going after every vote and absolutely every seat we can,” she said.

Ms Hourigan has previously lost the Green Party whip after voting against the Government. Speaking to The Irish Times on Sunday, she said that her suspension from the parliamentary party expires today and she is “in the process of reapplying for membership”.

She said that she intended to “rejoin the parliamentary party and be subject to the whip”.