AS A COLUMNIST who deals primarily in the stranger side of Irish society, it is safe to say that the resignation of Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has severed what was once a rich vein of surreality in our politics and public life. 

With all due respect to the man, in an electoral career spanning four decades, he developed something of a reputation as a gaffe on two wheels – a well-intentioned sort of man who scarcely went too long before getting stuck in the spokes of his own momentum. 

Shortly after going into government with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in 2020, there was the profoundly regrettable moment when he stood up in the Dáil and said the n-word without censoring himself when quoting an Irish Times headline. He later atoned, saying: “I repeated a racial slur. I was wrong to do so.”

There was that incident during the Oireachtas-in-exile days when he fell victim to those comfy Convention Centre seats and dozed off in the middle of a motion on workers’ rights and had to be woken up by a Dáil clerk. The pandemic was a flush time for the Dundrum man, who also raised a few scoffs when he suggested that citizens nourish themselves during Covid-19 by growing lettuce on their south-facing windows. 

Speaking in the Dáil on the day that Simon Harris became Taoiseach, Ryan said that when it came to hitting climate targets, we are “only getting warmed up”. Word choice was never quite his thing, and one wonders who amongst our remaining elected officials will step into the breach to provide that kind of box office gaffe with such consistency. 

More importantly than all of that, Ireland’s failure to meet virtually any of its climate targets for the decade will be part of Ryan’s legacy. As things stand, Ireland will miss its 2030 target for reducing total greenhouse gas emissions by 22 percentage points. According to the Central Statistics Office, electricity consumption by data centres increased by 31% between 2021 and 2022. Meanwhile, the EPA reports that ”almost all sectors are on a trajectory to exceed their national sectoral emissions ceilings for 2025 and 2030, including agriculture, electricity, transport and industry”.

As The Journal‘s climate reporter Lauren Boland has previously noted, Ireland’s first two carbon budgets, which were signed into law in 2022 and aim to support achievement of the 51% emissions reduction goal prescribed by the EU Effort Sharing Regulation, are projected to be exceeded by between 17% and 27%.

Ireland’s bottom-line performance on climate has been poor enough that it would certainly be no surprise to see Just Stop Oil turn their attention to our shores and scurry into Newgrange like the mischievous little raccoons they are and fill the whole thing with soup or cornflour or whatever it is those rascals can get their hands on. 

Ryan can also point to several successes from his time in government. He brought down fares on public transport, he carved out plenty of bike lanes – an essential factor in bringing down emissions from private car use – and helped introduce the first ever substantive cut in the amount of money people pay for childcare, cutting the cost by up to 50%. Iarnród Éireann also brought in e-tickets under his watch, so he can also quite proudly say he brought Irish Rail into the 21st century. More like 2011 than 2024, but hey! It’s still progress! Kind of!

Ryan’s Green Party did pass the Climate Act in 2021 which set the 2030 and 2050 carbon emission reduction targets into law, an unprecedented milestone in Ireland’s approach to climate change. Similarly, he would surely argue that he curbed the less green instincts of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, who together were able to dwarf his own cohort in the Dáil, an imbalance evidenced rather painfully during the local and European elections, during which Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty called the Green Party “arrogant” and “autocratic”. Eamon Ryan raised the complaint in private conversation with his erstwhile fellow coalition leaders.

On a purely political level, Ryan oversaw a “Green wave” in 2019 and 2020 that rejuvenated the Greens’ participation in Irish public life after they were all but wiped out in the wake of the 2011 general election. The Greens he leaves behind will hope to avoid a similar fate in the next general election after losing both of their seats in the European Parliament and over half of their representation on local councils earlier this month.

Ryan will remain in situ as Minister for Transport at a time when Aer Lingus faces industrial action from its pilots, causing the cancellation of 10%-20% of flights over the first five days of the work-to-rule. Coming as the summer holiday season begins to ramp up, the Aer Lingus pilots have maximised their leverage in pursuit of better pay in line with inflation since 2019, amid a 400% increase in profits for the airline last year totalling €255 million. 

Some of the arguments that have been raised around the industrial action have been juvenile. I mean, quite literally juvenile. Taoiseach Simon Harris has put on his Helen Lovejoy hat and begged someone to please think of the children. 

Speaking on Thursday, the Taoiseach said: “The idea that passengers – children due to go on their summer holiday – would be used as pawns in an industrial relations dispute that has already been considered by the Labour Court is utterly reprehensible.”

There should be no shortage of sympathy for any young person who misses a holiday, thus depriving them of the opportunity to return to school in September and lie about having their first shift with a girl in Lanzarote who goes to a different school. Nevertheless, it seems as though the government is prepared to prioritise these appeals to emotion ahead of concerns raised by an unbelievably specialised set of workers who are essential every day of every year. 

One wouldn’t assume we’d ever ask An Post not to strike over fears it might damage widespread belief in Santa Claus but, on this evidence, that seems like exactly the kind of thing that we might do.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has been similarly strident on the matter, suggesting that the industrial action could harm Ireland’s reputation abroad. Okay, but, you know what would be really bad for our reputation? Pissing off the only people who know how to bestow unto us the miracle of flight. Pilots sat seething in their cockpits because the rain in Spain falls mainly on the shareholders, rather than the plane and the people who make it fly. 

As it stands, the impasse is not likely to be bridged before the industrial action gets underway on 29 June. But at least if you fancy a staycation, Eamon Ryan is free to give you a backer.