Ciarán Ahern: Who Will Pay for Missed Climate Targets?

Tánaiste, for the last 10 years, Fine Gael and Fine Fáil governments have been lucky enough to preside over very healthy public finances. How you've spent or misspent our great wealth is another matter. Though clearly the anger and frustration that we saw on our streets last week means that even with the vast resources at your disposal, you're clearly not getting it right. But it has been in your gift to splash the cash whenever you want it. Tax breaks for big developers and burger barons in the last budget, more sectoral handouts this week. But where, Tánaiste, is the bailout package for PAYE workers to protect their incomes, to reduce their bills with targeted energy credits and measures to adopt solar and retrofitting at scale? Too many people simply can't afford to even consider getting SEAI grants. If successive governments had taken our climate commitments seriously, we wouldn't be in the cost-of-living crisis that we are now, with some of the highest energy prices in Europe. We have a budget for our emissions in this country. We have legally binding targets to reduce our emissions. Or at least I thought we did. Because our carbon budget is very much in the red, and the Minister has admitted that we're going to miss our 2030 emissions targets by as much as 50%. The Climate Change and Fiscal Advisory Councils have warned us that fines are going to come in ranging from £8 to £26 billion by 2030. And who are you going to ask to pay for it, Tánaiste? It will be PAYE workers again who will have to shoulder that burden. Yesterday was overshoot day. If the rest of the world consumed at the rate that Ireland does since January 1st, we'd have run out of resources globally on April 14th. That's a month earlier than it would have been last year. Would you tolerate, Tánaiste, this lack of budgetary indiscipline when it comes to our public finances? You've just said we can't keep spending more. Of course you wouldn't tolerate this. But the manner in which this government approaches everything to do with climate, environment, biodiversity, it gives the impression that we've loads of carbon budget to spare for all these highly polluting projects that you want to pursue. New private wires laws that are going to turbocharge data centre expansion. And imported fracked gas through new LNG reserve that will power them. Once again, it will be ordinary PAYE workers who will pay the price for all of this in their energy bills. And now, Tánaiste, most worryingly, we see your government deciding that you just don't want to bother with the Climate Act at all when it comes to large, critical infrastructure projects. This government has consistently scapegoated environmental concerns arising via the planning process or judicial reviews as the root cause of your inability to deliver anything meaningful. But not any of them, no delays relating to, say, the new children's hospital, were due to environmental objections. There are any number of reasons why it takes time to deliver large projects, but dumping on environmentalists and environmental law is just dishonest. We all want to see critical infrastructure delivered and delivered quickly, but will you reverse this decision to disapply the Climate Act from the Critical Infrastructure Bill? And can you tell me when PAYE workers are going to get a break from your government? Thanks very much, Deputy O'Hearn. So the first thing, can I just reiterate my point that while there has been much discussion this week about various sectors, vital sectors to the Irish economy, whether they're farmers or fishers, hauliers or the likes, the fundamental point here is that this government's package supports everybody. Because the PAYE worker, and everybody else in this country, needs foods on the shelf. They need the ports operating, not blockaded. They need to make sure that our supply chains work. Many of the PAYE workers pulled up at petrol pumps this morning, where the cost of petrol and diesel is still too high, but lower than it was before we voted, and in fairness, you supported the cut on the excise this week as well. And crucially, measures that we take to try and somewhat contain, because no government can fully insulate, somewhat contain the impact of very significant rising costs caused by the war in Iran. They help keep inflation down, or at least moderate the growth of inflation, and that does genuinely have a benefit for all of us in society, including for PAYE workers. I'm really pleased that there's a meeting tomorrow taking place at the LEAF, the body that you know brings together trade union representatives, employer representatives, and senior members of the government, including myself and the Taoiseach. I think it's more important than ever that we have really good and intensive engagement. At challenging times, and I mean this sincerely, at challenging times in the history of this state, the trade union movement have stepped up time and time again and played a positive role. It doesn't mean, by the way, we always agree on everything. I don't want to kill their street cred, and I certainly don't agree with them on everything. But having constructive engagement in process at times of challenge, I value that. This government values it. I think this Iraq, this values it. And I heard the comments of the General Secretary of ICTU this week as well in relation to that. So we should challenge ourselves after the week that this country has had to make sure we have very robust, constructive structures in place for ongoing engagement. I want to say that, too. Look, in relation to renewables, sorry, but a positive. I mean, half of all electricity generated in this country in March came from renewables. First time, I think it was 49%, just under half, right? And we are making some progress. We need to do more. We need to do faster, because I agree with you on this point. As long as we're dependent on dirty fossil fuels from abroad, there is a security issue in every sense, including an economic security issue, too. But we are making some progress under the work of Minister O'Brien. We did see 58,000 homes retrofitted last year. We've seen record demand this year, over 29,000 applications already in. We've improved the grants, because I'm sure you were hearing from your constituents. I was certainly hearing from mine that it was too cumbersome to have to do everything together. And as a result of those changes, the grants for heat pumps up 95%, roof insulation up 81%, cavity wall insulation up 62% as well. In fact, in March alone, there were more than 6,000 applications for windows and more than 6,000 applications for doors as well. So these are encouraging signs. On critical infrastructure, critical infrastructure can include renewable energy as well. I do genuinely think that we could have a different perspective on this. It is taking far too long to deliver transformational projects, including transformational projects from an energy point of view. And I think the critical infrastructure bill tries to get that balance right. Thanks, Tony. We welcome the LEAF meeting next week. And the Labour Party will be supporting our trade unions here when they're looking for pay rises, when they're looking for remote and flexible working rights. And we're calling as well for free and cheap public transport and an expansion of those kind of schemes. You've given me nothing there to say that you're going to continue to abide by the Climate Act when it comes to our critical infrastructure. There are other reasons, other than environmental laws, that projects are delayed in this country. It's a lack of resourcing of our planning authorities, of our regulatory bodies, of our courts over the last 10 years that has resulted in the delays in these projects. It is not fair to dump on environmental laws. And it's not like our rivers and our waterways in this country are in pristine condition or that our biodiversity is in a really strong position. We need the Climate Act. The whole point of Section 15 of the Climate Act is that public bodies are held to account to actually do their duties in conjunction with our climate obligations. That should not be getting in the way of the construction of critical infrastructure. And I ask you to look again and reverse the decision in relation to the critical infrastructure bill. At least your politics is honest in the sense of we can agree or disagree on certain policy areas and you can criticise us and we can criticise you. But you don't come into this House and constantly suggest the abolition of very significantly important taxes and then also come up with a load of new spending ideas at the same time. Because that's not a sustainable position. What was very interesting in this House this week was the House didn't actually divide when it came to some of these issues by government and opposition. That was interesting too. Didn't divide along the big bad old government over here and all the opposition together. Didn't. We were better than that. Or at least many of us were in terms of trying to constructively engage. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate that too. No but, Deputy Director, you had your go you see. So I mean this week it's their time. It's their time. No. No. I mean this week. This week the Sinn Féin party took to social media to criticise Labour and the Social Democrats. I thought that was pretty pathetic. Anyway. I want to make a point on critical infrastructure. Come on. Come on Piers. Give everybody a chance this House. No bully boy tactics please. The critical infrastructure bill we support. And we're happy to tease through the detail. But we do believe that there are certain projects. And you're right. There's lots of factors. But I do believe at times environmental law can be a factor when there are projects that we need to deliver at real speed. This is not about all projects. It's about projects that are deemed to be critical. And the Minister as he takes this bill through the House will constructively engage and tease through the detail.