Richard Greene (politician)

Richard Greene (born 1950) is a political activist from Dublin, focusing on conservative family values campaigns, and formerly on opposing extradition to the United Kingdom. He was successively a member of Fianna Fáil, the Green Party, and Muintir na hÉireann, and is a spokesman for Cóir. He subsequently joined the Christian Solidarity Party and has become its leader. He was a member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the Eastern Health Board in the 1990s.

Greene went to national school in Clontarf and then O'Connell School. He got a degree in English Literature from Trinity College, Dublin, worked a year in France and became a secondary-school teacher, and subsequently a careers guidance counsellor. He holds a M.A. in linguistics from University College Dublin and did postgraduate research in sociolinguistics at Dublin City University. He is a chartered member of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors and is a graduate member of the Psychological Society of Ireland.

Greene developed an interest in politics during the 1981 hunger strikes, and campaigned on behalf of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six. He subsequently joined Fianna Fáil. He co-founded an unofficial Fianna Fáil members' anti-extradition association to oppose the implementation of the 1987 Extradition legislation, introduced under the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, which envisaged extradition from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, and reduced the ability of Irish republican suspects to avoid extradition for "political crimes". The controversial case of Father Patrick Ryan gave the group publicity. Greene was expelled from his cumann of Fianna Fáil on 3 October 1988 for "conduct unbecoming a member", reinstated two weeks later on appeal to the Dáil constituency Comhairle, and re-expelled by the national executive on 15 December.

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