Earth Day: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-22
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Roderic O'Gorman (GP), Dublin West

I thank Deputies for their contributions to this debate, particularly those Deputies who indicated their support for my motion. In the effort to try to find a bit of common ground among Deputies who disagreed, I was delighted to hear Deputy Michael Collins speak about supporting one of his constituents who is trying to move transport and heavy goods vehicles, HGVs, onto a battery source. I recommend the Deputy look at the zero-emission heavy duty vehicle purchase grant scheme that is in place. In my time as Minister, I had the opportunity to take part in the launch of a number of heavy-duty vehicles being done by ATC Computer Transport and Logistics. It turned approximately 10% of a large heavy-duty vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. It can be done. I am delighted to see Deputy Collins advocating for that in his constituency.
I am afraid my efforts to find common ground cannot extend quite as far as aligning myself with Deputy Danny Healy-Rae’s version of history and science. There is only so much we can do in one day.
I thank the Minister of State for his contribution. I am disappointed the Government is not prepared to accept the motion the Green Party has put forward and is instead tabling a countermotion, which frankly refuses to acknowledge the very real setback in climate action we have seen under this Government. There is serious denial on the Government benches around the scale of the challenges we face in Ireland. The attitude is that the foot can be taken off the pedal now that it does not have to deal with the Green Party at the Cabinet table.
At the very centre of this Government approach is the unambiguous statement by the Minister for climate and energy that Ireland will miss its 2030 emissions targets by half and the fact he has provided no emergency plan to seek to address that or reverse that trajectory. The climate consequences of that failure, of not reaching these targets, will have very real consequences for our economy as well. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council published a joint paper indicating the costs for Ireland as a potential range of €8 billion to €26 billion in compliance costs for missing climate targets. Even if we took the lowest end of that range, €8 billion, out of our budget in a year, that is a surplus wiped out. The comfort we enjoy now in terms of being able to deal with emergencies - for example, Covid, the Ukraine war and responding to the Iran war - that is being put at risk by our country's and our Government's failures to take the actions that will avoid these fines. What is particularly infuriating is that on this issue the Government is waving the white flag four years before the target deadlines come in. I do not know of any other targets set by the Government where it would be seen as acceptable for the Government to give up four years in advance. What the Government needs to do now is rapidly publish a climate action plan, fully align it to next carbon budget cycle and set out the additional measures, new measures and extra measures that will get Ireland back on track for our 2030 targets.
In his speech earlier, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, had a bit of a go at me because I did not reference nature and biodiversity in my initial ten-minute speech. Funnily enough, I was going to give him a little compliment in terms of a bit of good news yesterday in the context of his Department. Yesterday, my colleague, Senator Malcolm Noonan, recognised it was World Curlew Day. That was celebrated because we are finally seeing some breeding pairs come back to various parts of Ireland led by the NPWS. I was going to acknowledge the Minister of State's role in that. However, if he is not giving any space, I am not going to give it either. That good news is reflected at a time when we also know there is a major crisis in terms of migratory birds. The number of migratory birds coming to Ireland has decreased rapidly in the past 30 years. A number of species have been particularly impacted. I suggest to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, that rather than taking cheap digs that he looks at what he is not doing in his Department and looks at funding for farmers and nature-based solutions. That is funding had been put aside in the Climate and Nature Fund. There was €3.15 billion to deal with these kinds of issues and particularly to provide funding to farmers. We must recognise that if we are going to ask farmers to take nature-based solutions on their land, we have to pay them for that. We have to ensure new income streams are being provided. That money is gone because the Climate and Nature Fund was raided. Some €700 million of that, which was available to fund nature-based solutions that would have had a huge impact on biodiversity in our country, is not available anymore. That should be the focus of the Minister of State's work.
This House declared a climate and biodiversity emergency in 2019. I wish to emphasise the word "emergency". It was more than justified when we consider the scale of the risk to every person that climate change and biodiversity loss poses. In declaring an emergency, this House also took on the responsibility to respond to that emergency with action. The previous Government - the Government I was part of - took that responsibility seriously. We implemented ambitious targets. We passed the landmark climate Act. We funded the infrastructure we need to make that transition to a net zero economy. The Government is not treating this emergency with the seriousness it deserves, and worse, it is undermining the very mechanisms that have been put in place and that will allow us as a society to respond. No amount of hand waving away, in the context of the amendments to the motion, can change the fact the Government is undermining the climate action Act, defunding public transport and giving up on climate and biodiversity targets.
In tackling an emergency, sometimes the scale of the problem seems so large that it is difficult to make it tangible and make it real in the context of daily lives. However, this is not one of these times because the madness that we are seeing in the Middle East has made the climate emergency all too real for every one of us in Ireland. The energy crisis we face is a fossil fuels crisis. Many of us grew up hearing about the oil price crises of 1973 and 1979. Now, our generation is experiencing the second energy price crisis in four years. It is the second caused by a war in another part of the world and the second caused by the whims of an unstable political leader. We can free ourselves from the position of vulnerability we are in.
There is only one viable long-term solution to avoid these energy shocks and that is for Ireland to produce its own abundant renewable energy on our own terms. However, there is a lack of urgency and a lack of determination to address these challenges at pace by this Government. This lack of belief is translated into a failure to be able to convincingly make the case for this transition to the Irish people. Now, too often we see the opposite. We see an effort to scapegoat climate action for wider difficulties in the delivery of infrastructure.
I wish to conclude on the message that change in how we power our economy and our society can happen. Our European partners have shown that it can be delivered at speed and the benefits that accrue to the populations of those countries. This evening, the Green Party will join with other political parties and civil society groups outside the gates of Leinster House to remind the Government, which seeks to vote this motion down, that Ireland needs real climate action. The energy crisis is a consequence of the climate emergency. It is time for the Government to act. Let us establish our energy independence. Let us protect Irish households from high fuel bills into the future. Let us take that huge step towards meeting our climate and biodiversity targets.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-22