New Green Party leader Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman has suggested that a balance must be stuck between improving farm sustainability and avoiding constantly moving regulatory goalposts.

Farmers need certainty on what will be required of them in moves to green agriculture and also the supports that will be made available to them to meet the State’s environmental targets, O’Gorman said.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal on Monday, Minister O’Gorman stated that he does not see the election of another Dublin-based Green Party leader as being an obstacle to the party’s progress in rural Ireland.

“I think farmers are not looking at the address of our party leader, I think they are looking at the policies, they are looking to see are there proposals here that have a meaningful impact on my life, on my farm, on my business,” he commented.

“I will be very clear, we need to be bringing forward policies that increase the range of income streams for farmers, we have to be able to reward good practice where it takes place, we have to recognise that there are changes coming down European regulations.

“And we have to put in place the mechanisms that support farmers in terms of making those changes, give them a very clear sense of the direction of travel, not to be continuously changing goalposts, but to say ‘this is the direction of travel, this is how the State will step up to support you’”.

Narrow victory

The children’s minister edged out Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Pippa Hackett in the leadership contest to replace Minister Eamon Ryan, who is to step aside at the next general election after 13 years at the helm of the party.

Minister Hackett voiced support for the new leader, having lost out on the role by 984 Green Party members’ votes to 912.

She stated that the party must strive for relevance among voters if it is to retain and gain seats in the next general election.

Minister of State Pippa Hackett and new Green Party leader Minister Roderic O’Gorman.

“We stood before the electorate in 2020 and said if people wanted green, they had to vote green and they did that,” Minister Hackett said.

“And I know travelling the length and breadth of this country, listening to voters, that if we really want people to go green, we need to make it easy for people to go green and it has to be affordable for people to go green.

“I believe in a Green Party that strives to be relevant and relatable to people in their everyday lives and that recognises, if we want to make a commitment to certain things differently, we have to make it easy and we have to make it affordable.”