2 weeks Ago By Adam Higgins
RODERIC O’Gorman has vowed not to give in to attacks and threats after he was assaulted while out canvassing for votes. And the Green Party leader said the incident could have had serious consequences had a garda not stepped in to protect him. He also slapped down predictions his party will be wiped out in the upcoming General Election as he puts his pitch for a multi-billion euro revamp of Ireland’s public transport to Irish Sun readers.
From his very first week as Minister for Children , Equality, Disability and Integration, Mr O’Gorman — who is gay — was targeted with extremely vile online homophobic abuse. And this only got worse as he came under pressure to find accommodation for refugees — with his Department forced to take over buildings in towns and villages across the country. Recently, the Dublin West TD was attacked while out canvassing , with his Garda close protection officer forced to step in to stop the assault.
Salesman Karl Ronan, 45, from Erris Square in Dublin 15, has pleaded guilty to minor assault, damaging a clipboard, and breach of the peace. He has yet to be sentenced for the assault, with Mr O’Gorman telling The Irish Sun on Sunday that he has yet to decide whether to put forward a victim impact statement for the case. Speaking about the incident, he said: “I was out canvassing with a group and I engaged with a guy at a door.
"It kind of started to get a bit heated and ultimately he went for me basically. “But for the intervention of the garda, my protection officer, I think it would have gotten quite serious.” The incident has worried his family as he faces three weeks of canvassing before we head to the polls on November 29.
WANT to know the person behind the politician? Here, the Green Party chief takes our Irish Sun Leaders Quiz to see just how well he knows his punters. "I was always a Blur man so I have no idea to be quite honest with you. I didn’t even acknowledge it.
" WRONG : Correct answer is €86.50, before jumping to €176 "Dancing With The Stars." WRONG : Correct answer is The Late Late Toy Show "Pass.
" WRONG : Correct answer is Heimir Hallgrimsson "It’s €1.20.” WRONG : Correct answer is €2 "€2" CORRECT : it is €2 1/5: Clearly not mad for Oasis or footie, he scored an own goal by not knowing the transport fare introduced by his own party.
But the Green leader says he will NOT let attacks stop him from fighting for votes. He said: “I was back out that afternoon and I was back out the next day. “I’ve been canvassing in Dublin West for 20 years now.
It took me a long time to build up a vote in the area but I’ve always enjoyed that. “I think it’s really important in Ireland that politicians go out and knock on people’s doors and ask for the vote. “It makes us really different from Germany or France where they do these big rallies, but the politicians don’t really engage with people.
"I think that kind of creates a gap between the politicians on one side and the voters on the other. “We don’t have that in Ireland. I know people say we do but we actually don’t.
"Because you’ll see Government ministers go to a local meeting about a school or a local fundraiser because that’s part of the role here. “I think it would be terrible if politicians from any parties or Independents started to feel nervous or reluctant to go out on the doors. “I think it would change the nature of Irish democracy for the worse.
So that’s why I don’t give in to this sort of stuff. I will keep going out.” The attack is only one of a number of confrontations that the minister has had over recent years — including one that has led him to believe that Ireland’s public transport system needs to be safer, with the possible introduction of a new policing unit.
At the beginning of this Government, Mr O’Gorman was on a train home when a drunk man started slagging a teenager and things got heated. He said: “A fella was drunk and he was slagging a young lad, a teenager, and it was starting to get a little bit more aggressive. “Myself and a few others kind of told him to lay off and I actually stayed an extra stop just to see that the young lad got out alright.
“But then the guy started kinda of shaping up to me. I had to call my other half and make a quick evacuation.” Mr O’Gorman says the incident showed him just how vulnerable people can be on public transport.
And making buses, trains and trams safer will be a key issue of focus for the Greens in their manifesto. Unsurprisingly, their biggest election pitch will focus on public transport. It follows on from them lowering fares in recent years and increasing the number of bus routes across the country.
Mr O’Gorman tells The Irish Sun that his party would use the €14billion Apple tax money to speed up the delivery of major public transport projects, such as the Dublin Metro and the Galway and Cork Luas lines. He also wants to see billions from the windfall funnelled into the Land Development Agency to build more public homes on public land. On public transport, he promises to end the “ghost bus” nightmare that sees passengers abandoned at stops where a scheduled bus disappears from the system and never shows up.
He wants to do this by introducing a “reliability and punctuality” unit in the National Transport Authority. By Gary Meneely THE Greens have mocked Fianna Fail’ s climate action plans, declaring: “We don’t know whether to laugh or cry.” Details of Fianna Fail’s environmental proposals were revealed yesterday.
But the Greens immediately jabbed that FF had discovered “a new-found interest in climate action”. Green Minister Ossian Smyth conceded it was “positive” to see the party taking an interest in climate action. But the Dun Laoghaire TD, right, gasped that he was stunned at such “new-found enthusiasm” from a party which he maintained had to be dragged “kicking and screaming” on a slew of environmental issues.
And Green leader party Roderic O’Gorman also poked fun at FF, saying he was “really delighted” at their new eco interest. He added: “It does somewhat contrast with the approach that we found from Fianna Fail over the last 41⁄2 years in Government.” And while the Greens are often accused of “hating roads” by political opponents due to their funding of cycling and bus infrastructure, Mr O’Gorman quickly bats this away.
He declared: “We are not anti-road but we will never apologise for being really ambitious in terms of public transport investment.” Mr O’Gorman was elected leader of the Greens following the retirement of Eamon Ryan , who led the party back from the brink and into Government with 12 TDs. The Greens lost both their MEPs — Ciaran Cuffe and Grace O’Sullivan — in the European elections in June.
And they are sitting at just four per cent in the latest opinion polls — but Mr O’Gorman does not believe his party are facing another 2011 wipe out. He said: “Everyone said we were going to be wiped out in the local elections and we lost some seats, yes, but we also topped the poll in quite a few parts — particularly around Dublin city centre. “We’re going into this election to hold our Dail seats and grow them with a number of really strong Senators in Roisin Garvey and Pauline O’Reilly — Roisin is well tipped in Clare now to take a seat there.
“That is my ambition — to grow our number of seats. I think we have shown how we have delivered over the last four years.” The ‘Greens deliver’ is the party’s key campaign slogan this time around.
Mr O’Gorman is keen to highlight his achievements while in coalition with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael for the past four-and-a-half years. Chief among these is the 50 per cent reduction in childcare fees introduced over successive budgets — something he believes Fianna Fail and Fine Gael would never have done without the Greens, despite both parties boasting about it in their own campaigns . He said: “I went out and didn’t check with Fianna Fail or Fine Gael and said my ambition is over two years to half the costs.
And I went and negotiated it across two budgets. They were tough. “You might remember Budget 2024 — it was the afternoon before the budget was announced when I got it over the line.
So I don’t think that would have been done without the Green Party in Government and without myself as Minister.” Taoiseach Simon Harris is selling a €200 a month childcare plan as part of Fine Gael’s election campaign, while Sinn Fein is promising a €10 per day fix. However, the Green leader believes these parties are “fighting yesterday’s battle” on costs.
Instead, he is pitching a new State childcare scheme to boost the number of places available as he believes difficulty in finding a space is now the biggest issue facing parents..
