O'Gorman warns against independents propping up coalition

The Green Party leader has predicted that Fianna Fáil land Fine Gael will be back in Government after the election, but has warned against such a coalition being "propped up by a few independents".

Ahead of the General Election being officially called tomorrow, Roderic O'Gorman held a press conference with his party’s TDs and Senators, saying that although they are the smallest party in this coalition, they have had the greatest impact.

The Minister for Integration also defended his management of International Protection System, saying it is not as big an issue among voters as it once was.

"The polls suggest the two major parties will be back in the next government. I think if it is a government just made up of them, or maybe propped up with a few independents, I think it would be a very different government to the one we have had over the past four years," he said.

"We won't see those innovative policies in terms of climate, in terms of helping families, in terms of public transport. We would not see those delivered in a government that the Green Party is not part of, and that is why we will be making the case strongly every single day over the next 22 days, that we need a strong Green Party presence at the centre of the next government."

On housing, Mr O'Gorman said his party ensured cost rental became part of the mix of tenure in Ireland.

"There are now 2,000 cost rental homes where families are living in right now, there is going to be thousands more over the next number of years," he said

Green Party policy will be different from Sinn Féin's, he said, because it wants the Land Development Agency (LDA) to "keep going to build more cost rentals so people can enjoy rent that is cheaper because you are stripping out the landlord's profits."

He said the greens will argue for a core migration agency that will have two roles: sourcing accommodation and speeding up the processing of international protection applicants.

Minister O’Gorman has been the subject of criticism as migration and the IPS became a significant political issues in recent times.

He said he has "no doubt the far right will try to capitalise on the issue" but that "what I have seen on the doors is its prevalence coming up has decreased over the last number of months."

He added: "A lot of that is because we are now able to accommodate people more quickly. we are not seeing the tented cities we are saw on our streets earlier on this year and that is because the new accommodation strategy I brought in in March is delivering on our ability to accommodate people who previously would have been rough sleeping."