Government's abandonment of climate ambition can be seen in revised NDP allocations

Speaking following publication of the National Development Plan Review today, July 22nd, the Green Party has criticised the revised allocations, calling them a ‘huge bait and switch’.

Public Expenditure Spokesperson, Councillor Hazel Chu said: “What’s happening here is that the Government have decided to divert almost all of the hard won Climate and Nature Fund towards addressing areas that were already must-fund projects designed to address chronic historic underfunding”. 

“In choosing to divert this fund, the Government have sacrificed the enormously beneficial projects we need to get started on today: projects like offshore wind, like improving energy efficiencies in small and medium sized businesses, like retrofitting our schools and hospitals”. 

“In that sense, the Government is addressing the missed opportunities of the past, at twice the price, by defunding the future. They are creating a whole new generation of missed opportunities, and they want to be called visionaries for it.”

Party leader Roderic O’Gorman TD added: “People should not be fooled here. Behind the noise about increased spending on transport, the Government is actually abandoning the critical schemes that will help us reduce our emissions, like energy innovation, offshore wind and building retrofit. It is doing this to address the chronic historic underspend on basic infrastructure that other countries are decades ahead of us on. They cannot call this forward planning.”