CATHERINE MARTIN HAS ruled herself out of the race to replace outgoing Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.

She has also confirmed that she will step back as deputy leader of the party.

Eamon Ryan announced this afternoon that he was standing down as leader of the party and that he would not stand in the next general election.

In a lengthy statement shared on social media, Martin extended her “warm wishes and gratitude to Eamon for his dedicated leadership of the Green Party” and said he is “rightly regarded both in Ireland and well beyond as a trailblazing green leader”.

“It has been an honour and privilege to work closely with him as Deputy Leader of the Green Party over the past 13 years, during which time we collaborated with our grassroots membership in rebuilding the party.”

She said she was looking forward to “continuing to work with Eamon and my Parliamentary Party colleagues in playing our role in providing both stable and effective government”. 

“At this point in time, I will not be putting myself forward for the Leadership contest. I will also step back as Deputy Leader,” she continued.

“I look forward to supporting the new leadership of the party. We are fortunate to have such an extremely talented party membership.”

The Arts and Media Minister added that she was focused on representing the people of Dublin Rathdown and confirmed that she would be standing in the next general election in her constituency. 

“At a time of great uncertainty in the world, and with the growing impacts of the climate and biodiversity emergency, we need the creative solutions that come from working together – more than ever,” she concluded. 

The Green Party lost half their council seats (going from 44 to 23) and both of their MEPs – Grace O’Sullivan and Ciarán Cuffe – in the recent local and European elections.

In his resignation statement, Ryan said he decided to step down “a good few months ago”, rather than after the recent election losses.

He said he will hand over to a “new generation” and that he believes the coalition government can go full term.

A leadership contest will now take place within the party, with sources tipping Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman to potentially take the role. 

Attention has also turned to the candidates in the Green Party likely to vie for Ryan’s Dublin Bay South seat in the Dáil.

Among the potential runners are three Dublin candidates who performed well in the local elections – Claire Byrne, Hazel Chu and Carolyn Moore – all of who have seats in the Dublin Bay South constituency.