The Green Party leader has “no regrets” about going into a three-party government in 2020, but said the two main coalition partners did them “no favours”.
Roderic O’Gorman said “that’s politics” of criticism of the Green Party by their former government colleagues Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil during election campaigns this year.
He said Green candidates were getting “very few transfers” from either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael as counts continued on Sunday.
“I don’t think they did us any favours but I wasn’t expecting them to do us favours,” he said at the count centre in Phibblestown.
“We have a very distinct political philosophy from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, it is harder to see the difference between those two parties, and I think if they go into government again, which looks likely, the difference is more and more difficult to see.
“We were very different, we took the risk of going in with them, we were able to deliver, but there are political consequences for taking the risk and we suffered them over this weekend.”
The Dublin West candidate, who is in a battle to keep his seat, said he was “reasonably confident” of being re-elected based on the outstanding transfers.
If he is re-elected, he could be the only Green Party representative in the next Dáil, a significant drop from its 12 outgoing TDs.
“Obviously it’s been a hugely disappointing day for the Green Party,” he said.
Pledging to revive the party in the years ahead, he said they would go into “rebuild mode” from next week.
He said his experience of pulling back support for the party after the 2011 general election, when it had no TDs, would be used and he said he would stay on as leader.
He added: “If someone had told me when I had cast my vote for the programme for government vote in 2020 this what was going to happen, I’d do it all again, it’s absolutely worth it.
“There’s been a cost, but that’s politics.
“We don’t run just to get the seat and hold the seat and not do anything with it.
“You get political capital and you spend it and we spent it in the last four and a half years.”
Asked about how the party would reform itself to avoid another significant election loss, Mr O’Gorman said: “The only way a small party can insulate itself from the risk of going into government is to not go into government.”
He wished Labour and the Social Democrats well in any possible future government negotiations as a junior partner, and urged them to use their mandates “to push progressive politics”.
Listing the achievements of his party, Mr O’Gorman said they introduced legally binding climate targets, reduced emissions to their lowest in 30 years, invested in public transport and halved the cost of childcare.
He said he had concerns about whether some Green policies would be continued by the next government, including the commitment to investment in transport.
“If we see the next government trying to row back from some of those key Green Party policies, I’ll be using whatever platform I have to place a focus on that and to fight it.”
