DUBLIN – A key leader of Ireland’s three-party government says he’s quitting as Green Party leader, escalating speculation that the Irish soon could face a snap election.

Eamon Ryan announced after Tuesday's Cabinet meeting that he will resign as Green chief and as environment minister once his grassroots party activists elect a successor.

He said stepping down after 13 years in charge would allow “a new leader enough time to prepare for the next election – whenever it is.”

The move follows this month’s European and council elections, which saw the two center-ground heavyweights of Irish politics, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, fare better than expected – and often at the expense of their junior coalition partner, the Greens.

Prime Minister Simon Harris, the Fine Gael leader, is increasingly expected to call a snap election, most likely in November – a prospect that will fill the Greens with trepidation given the wallop they've just received.

The environmentalists lost both of their sitting lawmakers in the European Parliament and more than half of their council seats. Ryan said he’d faced those losses with “a bitter sense of disappointment.”

The Greens’ promotion of EU sustainability goals made Ryan a prominent figure at annual United Nations climate change conferences and on the European stage.

On Monday in Luxembourg, he and other EU environment ministers successfully pushed to get the Nature Restoration Law across the finish line. It commits Europe to repair 20 percent of its land and seas by 2030.

But his party agenda proved a vote-loser in Ireland’s rural heartlands, where dairy and beef cattle constitute the nation’s biggest single emitter of greenhouse cases.  

Although Ryan emphasized his determination to stay in government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, his sudden political weakness raises doubt about whether their partnership will run its full five-year term due to expire in March 2025.

Their combination gives the government an 82-vote block in the 160-member chamber, where 36 Sinn Féin lawmakers share the opposition benches with a panoply of smaller left-wing parties and loose-cannon independents.

Much now will depend on whether Ryan’s successor as leader keeps the Greens at the Cabinet table or withdraws, depriving Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael of a stable majority.

Martin rules herself out

It’s far from clear who among the Greens’ electorally endangered lawmakers even wants the job. The party executive met Tuesday night to plan a potential three-week leadership contest, with the deadline for candidates to declare their interest set for Friday.

But the Greens’ deputy leader, Catherine Martin, immediately ruled herself out of a potential promotion – and announced she’s quitting as deputy, too.

Much like Ryan, Martin said she’d stay as the government’s minister for tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sport and media until the Greens pick a new top team.

At that point, both could be replaced at Cabinet – or told to find the exit door if the new Green leadership chooses to quit the coalition. Ryan and Martin both stressed their view that this shouldn’t happen.

Pulling the plug on power-sharing with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and returning to opposition in advance of an election might be seen as the best way to shield the Greens from even greater losses. That’s because many supporters of niche, ideologically-driven parties like the Greens typically vote for them when they’re railing against the government, but not if they’re enabling Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael to stay in power.

The Greens suffered near-annihilation at the polls in 2011 following their first involvement in a coalition with Fianna Fáil.

But Ryan, who became leader following his party’s crushing losses that year, said he doesn’t expect the Greens to lose as heavily this time. He cited the country’s vastly improved financial position versus 2011 and a string of party achievements in this government, including annual Climate Action Plans and European-leading rates of home retrofitting.

Even if the Greens were to withdraw from government, that wouldn’t require an immediate election – because a two-party government might still be able to scrape together a bare majority in parliamentary votes.

Harris and Foreign Minister Micheál Martin, the Fianna Fáil chief, would seek support from rural independent lawmakers, who since 2020 often have sided with the government versus Sinn Féin.

This story was updated with further reporting.