HAPPY FAMILY
Inside Eamon Ryan’s family life with wife and four children including challenge to diagnose beloved son’s autism
The Dublin politician made the shock announcement this afternoon
GREEN Party leader Eamon Ryan has announced that he is stepping down - and won't be standing in the next general election.
The Dublin TD informed his Cabinet colleagues today and the Greens’ parliamentary party about his decision.
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Ryan has served as the leader of the Green Party for 10 years and he also successfully saw off a leadership bid from Catherine Martin following the last general election.
Speaking outside Leinster House, he said: "I'm here today to announce that I intend stepping down as the leader of the Green Party, Comhaontas Glas, and that I will not be standing in the next general election.
"I've spent the last 30 years either running for or holding public office as a councillor, TD and government minister.
"It's been an absolute privilege, and I want to thank the electorate who voted for me on eight different occasions over those years, giving me the opportunity to serve our city and our country to the best of my ability.
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"I'm stepping down to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders, confident in the strength and values I've seen built up in our party over all these years. Our policy will now elect a new leader to take the party forward from here and our own local group will now select a candidate to run in Dublin Bay South.
"I will continue as party leader and in my ministerial roles until a new leader is appointed, and look forward to fulfilling whatever role a new leader assigns me for the remaining terms of this government."
ELECTIONS
It comes just after the party received disastrous local and European election results.
Both of the party’s MEPs failed to keep their seats and the party lost more than half of its local councillors.
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In the local elections, the party saw its local council numbers drop from 49 seats to just 23.
Born in Dublin in 1963, Ryan was raised in Dundrum, where he still lives with his family.
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He attended Gonzaga College and University College Dublin, graduating with a Bachelor degree in Commerce.
After three years of emigration and unemployment, in 1989 he founded Cycling Safaris - a company that organises cycling holidays in Ireland and Europe,
Eamon was running this business when he met his wife-to-be Victoria, the former arts editor of the Irish Times.
She was interested in hillwalking, traditional music and the Irish language, while he was also a fan of traditional music, learning to play the violin.
The couple met at set-dancing club Brooks Academy, which met at The Pipers' Club on Henrietta Street in the mid-1990s, though at first glance Victoria wasn't too interested.
She said when she saw him first she thought "I'm not interested in him!" - but they later talked, discovering that they had everything in common.
She told the Irish Independent: "When I met him at the set-dancing class, I immediately ruled him out because I just thought he looked like a really cocky, self-assured, good-looking man and he was a brilliant dancer.
"I just got the impression he'd be really into himself, and I also got the impression that he'd be thick. But once I had exchanged two words of conversation with him, I realised he wasn't thick and then I became interested."
'MAGICAL WEEKEND'
The couple then went away for a weekend with the Brooks Academy to Dungarvan a week or two later.
Eamon told the Irish Independent: "It was just one of those magical weekends: music all the way and just great fun, and at the end of that weekend it was clear we were an item.
"That's roughly how we met, and we went out together then for over a year or so before I asked her to marry me."
They were married within two years.
Ryan married journalist and author Victoria White in 1998 and the pair have four children.
The couple have kids Tommy, Jack, Ino and Roise.
Speaking about this first impression about Victoria, he told the Irish Independent: "My first impression of Victoria was that she was someone who was very bright and had a good sense of humour.
"She's quite sparky in her humour and in her conversation. I would have seen her across the dance floor, so my first impression was, 'Now there's a good-looking woman!'
"She said that I was staring at her atrociously, but she caught my eye and I suppose then when we went down to the pub afterwards, it moved from being a woman I thought was very good-looking to someone I thought was very interesting."
In 2009, Victoria spoke out about her husband's holidays while in Government.
She took issue with Joe O'Connor's speech on his weekly radio diary on RTE's Drivetime, where he spoke about cabinet members lengthy summer holidays.
In response, she said: "I'm a minister's wife and I'm just sick to death.
"The Dail may be out but, of course, the cabinet works through the summer, with a short break in August, during which time my husband may reacquaint himself with his family.
"We have strong political beliefs and do not believe it's possible not to try to change things when you have the chance."
"You would not speak of any other group of people so ignorantly and so viciously as you speak of politicians."
She previously wrote a column for the Irish Examiner, which she gave up in 2020.
She explained: "I don't like being a Minister's wife but I like the possibilities this Programme for Government brings.
"This is my last column for this newspaper, at least for a time.
"I am giving it up because my husband Eamon Ryan has become Minister of Climate Action, Communications Networks and Transport as part of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Green Party Coalition.
"This means I don’t believe I can speak freely enough to write a wide-ranging column anymore.
"There would be times when my free speech might destabilise the Government while my silence on certain issues would harm this wonderful newspaper.
"I do love him, however. I also want this Government to work."
Last year, the minister opened up about the challenges his family faced getting Ireland’s healthcare system to diagnose his son’s autism.
His son, Tommy, struggled with autism for two years before experts identified the condition and came up with a care plan.
Eamon said: “We went to get all sorts of help and, to be honest, like a lot of parents out there with children with disabilities, it wasn’t like the system snapped into action and gave us the quick diagnosis.
“It took a couple of years and wasn’t, in my mind, the finest moment for the Irish healthcare, or health education, system.
“It’s good by and large, but it’s not serving children with disabilities well, particularly in that early diagnosis period.”
Eamon revealed that Tommy, who is now in his 20s and also has intellectual disabilities, showed no sign of health issues until he was at least four.
He explained: “Late onset autism can come in a really debilitating way and it’s very frightening for the person. Their sensory system starts to be really challenged.”
Tommy now spends his days at Gheel Autism Services’ daycare centre in Dublin.
But Eamon told the Ciara Phelan podcast that he will never live independently, adding: “It’s tough. There’s no respite.
“One of the upsides is we will never stop parenting, one of the downsides is we’ll never stop parenting. You always have that responsibility.”
Eamon also revealed he only learned to read and write when he was around nine.
TOPPED THE POLLS
Ryan first held political office in 1998, co-opted to Dublin City Council, moving into the seat previously held by John Gormley.
In the 1999 local elections he topped the polls in the Rathmines local electoral area.
From 1995 until 202 he served on the advisory committee of the Dublin Transport Office.
He was first elected as a Green Party TD in 2002 for the Dublin South constituency.
In the 29th Dail, he served as Green Party Spokesperson for Transport, Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.
In 2004 he announced that he was going to seek the party's nomination to be a presidential candidate in that years' election, but he later puled out when Mary McAleese announced she was looking for a second term.
His campaign was also hit by his admission of using cannabis.