Roderic O'Gorman: I know how to hurt the incoming government

Green Party leader Roderic O'Gorman Picture: Leah Farrell / © RollingNews.ie

Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has promised to be a “bollocks” in holding the new Government to account from the opposition benches.

Addressing his party’s convention in Dublin, Mr O’Gorman revealed that he has warned members of the outgoing government that he will be strongly calling out Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and knows how to hurt them.

Mr O’Gorman said he had recently been on a radio panel with two other government TDs, and “afterwards as we were leaving, they were like, ‘well look Roderic, it'll be grand, you'll always be very reasonable, we know, in opposition’. I was like, ‘guys, I’m going to be a bollocks’.

“The one real benefit I have having sat as a minister for four-and-a-half years thinking, ‘oh, please don't ask that question’, is I know what the questions are now that they don’t want asked.” 

He added: “So whereas I've never been an opposition TD before, I've been a government minister with a lot of incoming fire, and I know where that fire hurts the most.

“I absolutely will be using whatever I've learned over the last four-and-a-half years to hold this government, which I don't think will have the interests of implementing the kind of policies we implemented. I'll be using that voice, that position that I have, to hold it to account every single day,” he told party members.

Around 400 people have registered ti attend the Green Party conference taking place in the Castleknock Hotel this weekend.