Former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, who is retiring from front-line politics, said his party had not had a good day in the General Election.
Arriving at the count centre at the RDS in Dublin, the outgoing environment minister said: “If you don’t get elected you accept that, but you come back stronger and you learn lessons, and we’ve done that in the past and we will do that again.”
He added: “No matter what the results today there will be a strong Green Party in Ireland, we have deep roots in the community and it’s a very distinct political philosophy and I think there is still space for that in Irish politics, for sure.”
Mr Ryan said he did not believe his decision to retire, and the timing of his announcement in June this year, had affected the party’s showing.
“Unfortunately – and this is just one of those days – we didn’t get the number of votes,” he said.
He added: “We’ll look back and see what are the lessons, and what can we learn and what can we do differently.
“It’s just one of those days when we didn’t have a good day.”
Meanwhile, Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan said his party’s ‘red lines’ were not intended to rule them out of being in government with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
At the election count centre at the RDS in Dublin he said: “We are hoping to be transfer-friendly and a lot of the contests we’re in are going to be for final seats, and we hope to get transfers from all directions.”
He added: “The reason we picked five deal-breakers was to define how we want to go into government. It wasn’t to rule us out of government, it was to show people what we want to do if we do get into government.
“So this is about defining our negotiations and talks with the parties once the election counts are over.”
On a common platform for left-wing parties to negotiate from, Mr O’Callaghan said: “We certainly intend on talking to the Labour Party and other parties over the coming days and weeks, that’s our intention.”
