In the upcoming Dublin Central by-election, Aontú are running Ian Noel Smyth, an architect who describes himself as an “environmentalist” and “green builder” on his X account. Smyth has previously contested Dublin Central as Aontú’s candidate in 2024 and 2020, and as the Green Party’s candidate in 2016. He also ran in the locals for Aontú in 2024 and for the Greens in 2014.
This is not an article about Ian Noel Smyth, but I begin with that context because I find it striking that Aontú would put him forward for election once again just after welcoming an out-and-out climate change denier as one of its newest councillors.
Cllr. Peter O’Donoghue of Fermoy, first elected in 2024 as an independent, has been on my radar for some time, not least because he did an “apprenticeship” working with Tipp South TD Mattie McGrath. He made his political bones in 2021 as an organiser of anti-lockdown protests in Cork, where he described himself as “not a quack” and “not a left wing or a right wing nut“.
On that matter alone, it is quite extraordinary the party that (rightly!) split with its then-deputy leader Anne McCloskey over her COVID denialism during lockdown has now warmly welcomed Cllr. O’Donoghue to its fold.
But also, if his claims then were ever true, they aren’t now. Cllr. O’Donoghue is a quack and a right-wing nut and a denier of climate change. He stated on X in 2024, in the course of criticising the Irish Farmers’ Association, that there is “no categorical evidence” of man-made climate change, and called those who believe in it “dangerous conspiracy theorists” and “brainwashed“.
Since joining Aontú in January this year, he has posted on Facebook that “there is no climate crisis” and described a voluntary workshop for local councillors on the climate crisis an attempt to “indoctrinate your local elected political representatives”.
Neither Cllr. O’Donoghue nor Aontú responded to multiple requests for comment on this article, in particular on whether the councillor and the party are aligned on the issue of climate change.
Undeterred by their silence, I decided to see if I could figure out for myself what Aontú’s position on climate change actually is, an inquiry that became all the more intriguing once I realised it is barely mentioned on the party’s website.
Or rather, it’s not mentioned anymore, because there appears to have been a purge of posts on Aontú’s website at some point after December 2024.
In a now-deleted 2019 press release, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín described Fine Gael as “like a snail on valium when it comes to climate change” and said they “would make Trump blush when it comes to climate change”, criticising them for not being more aggressive in their green policies.
He concludes: “The means for tackling climate chaos are available to us. What’s absent is the political will and a healthy sense of embarrassment”.
Speaking in the Dáil in March 2020, he said climate change “is by far one of the most significant challenges the planet faces“, and in September 2020 he said “climate change is very real and we have seen ten of the warmest years on record happen since 1998“.
As late as August 2023, Aontú was using an official social media account to rebuke Ruth Coppinger for suggesting the party “denies or minimises climate change”, stating emphatically that Aontú “does not deny climate change“.
Nowadays, however, Aontú mostly invokes climate issues to brag about how they were the only party to vote against the Climate Action Bill. Certainly a flawed piece of legislation, but hardly something it was morally heroic to oppose.
The page on “Environment” under the “Issues” section of Aontú’s website – completely unchanged since it was created in 2019 – says it’s “astounding that in the South of Ireland, not one solar farm is plugged into the grid”.
This is, obviously, no longer true, but more than that, Cllr. Peter O’Donoghue is a strident opponent of solar farms, calling their development a “cancer that needs to be nipped in the bud“. Since joining Aontú, he has posted a video on Facebook calling solar farms a waste of money and land, and claiming they destroy “our beautiful rural landscape and environment”.
He is directly at odds with the party on one of the climate issues that Peadar Tóibín chose to make explicit Aontú policy. Unless, of course, Aontú has abandoned these policies and simply not bothered to update their website.
The party’s retreat from climate issues and embrace of a climate change denier is all the more galling because in his increasing radicalisation against trans rights, Tóibín has called trans acceptance an “anti-science ideology“. Indeed, he said so the very same week he welcomed Cllr. O’Donoghue to the party with a big splash in The Avondhu.
On this at least, the councillor is aligned with his leader, having previously referred to prescribing puberty blockers as “child mutilation“.
Climate change seems to still be real to Aontú when it suits their political agenda, as when Peadar Tóibín (rightly!) said “there is no doubt that AI will be a significant element in making climate change worse” in the Dáil last year.
So how can the party stand over one of their councillors being a climate change denier?
This is a contradiction that demands resolution. Either there is a climate crisis and we need to invest massively in renewable energy, or there is no climate crisis and solar farms are a cancer.
Aontú can’t have it both ways.
Or rather, they couldn’t have it both ways if the bulk of the Irish press weren’t so intent on giving them the softiest, easiest ride possible.
So soft and so easy, they’ll do a whole article about how Peadar Tóibín reckons an answer he received to a parliamentary question was AI-generated because it arrived to him in illegible Greek.
Reader: it’s in illegible Greek because it’s in English and someone has just accidentally changed the font to one in the Greek alphabet. It is a copy and paste error, which Peadar Tóibín evidently ruminated on for multiple years because he felt it was a personal slight against him.
Two months ago, he welcomed a climate change denier to his party, and instead of being covered as a quite shocking move for a mainstream political party in the Year of Our Lord 2026, it was greeted with a shrug.
I truly don’t know why Aontú and Tóibín get such gentle treatment from the press, but it’s simply not an acceptable level of scrutiny for a party and its leader, regardless of political persuasion.
Aontú are running a self-described environmentalist as a candidate in a by-election at the same time they are welcoming a climate change denier as a new councillor.
If they are allowed to make it to polling day without getting challenged on this enormous contradiction within their ranks, it will be a shameful dereliction of journalistic duty.
It won’t, however, be much of a surprise.
Left in the Lurch 