The Government has a habit of signing up to laws and targets, making announcements and slapping itself on the back before walking away. It walks away without a plan, without any ring-fenced funding for the targets it has set out to achieve and really without any plan to deliver what is proposed. The EU Nature Restoration Law is a perfect example of this. We are now legally obliged to restore at least 20% of our land and sea by 2030. That is not just a target or an aspiration but a legally-binding obligation with fines attached. My questions for the Minister of State is how we achieve this without any ring-fenced funding or plan and ultimately who will pay the fines that are attached. On the one hand the legal obligations are intensifying while on the other the funding is being pulled away. The committee drafting Ireland’s nature restoration plan has already raised concerns about the absence of the nature funding within the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. The principal investment framework for this State, which runs up to 2035, does not even adequately support the objectives the Government has signed us up to. Instead, and quite incredibly, the bulk of the funding is actually being diverted to the Dublin MetroLink. To be clear, we signed up to the Nature Restoration Law and then the Government diverted the money away from nature restoration into MetroLink. This is not the only area where we are basically sleepwalking into European fines. Ireland is already falling significantly short of our EU emissions targets and the gap between what we have committed to and what is happening on the ground is widening. It is farmers, rural communities and ultimately ordinary people who will pay these fines.

Sentiment score: 0.11