Departmental Expenditure Dail Éireann — 2023-09-28 ============================================================ Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West Information Aontú received from the Department in December shows that the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications took €1.5 million that was intended to ensure there was a just transition and used it to support the climate finance activities of the United Nations instead. While those figures may seem small fry to the Minister of State, in reality they are massive figures for those who are suffering, in particular those in the midlands and other regional and rural areas around the country. In the same month, the Minister took a €500,000 underspend from the communities retrofit scheme and put it into a media campaign called Reduce Your Use. It is clear to me that money which has been assigned for good purposes to help people is being redirected and siphoned off for pet projects that do not help to address the significant needs in communities around the country. Does the Minister of State not believe that has to change? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-09-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:13+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-09-28