PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE has this evening formally accepted the resignations of the Green Party’s members of cabinet.

John Gormley and Eamon Ryan, who were Ministers at the Department of the Environment and Local Government and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources respectively, both quit the cabinet as part of the Green Party’s withdrawal from government, announced earlier today.

Junior ministers Ciarán Cuffe and Mary White have also resigned from the government ranks.

Pat Carey and Éamon Ó Cuív have been appointed to oversee the two ministerial briefs vacated by the two Green former ministers; Carey becomes the de facto Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, as well as taking on Noel Dempsey’s former Transport brief, and his own brief of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Éamon Ó Cuív, meanwhile, takes on the Department of Environment and Local Government; he had already held the Social Protection brief, and had become the Minister for Defence after Tony Killeen stepped down from the Cabinet last week.

The Cabinet now only consists of seven people, the minimum number required by the Constitution.