For the last 10 years, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments have been lucky enough to preside over very healthy public finances. How they have 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 the Government’s disposal, it clearly is not getting it right. It has been in its gift to splash the cash whenever its wants. There were tax breaks for big developers and burger barons in the last budget and more sectoral handouts this week, but where 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 cannot afford to even consider getting SEAI grants. If successive Governments had taken our climate commitments seriously, we would not 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. Our carbon budget is very much in the red and the Minister has admitted that we are 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 billion to €26 billion by 2030. Who is the Government going to ask to pay for it? 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 has since 1 January, we would have run out of resources globally on 14 April. That is a month earlier than it would have been last year. Would the Tánaiste tolerate this lack of budgetary indiscipline when it comes to our public finances? He has just said that we cannot keep spending more. Of course, he would not tolerate this but the manner in which this Government approaches everything to do with climate, environment and biodiversity gives the impression that we have loads of carbon budget to spare for all these highly polluting new projects that it wants to pursue. New private wires laws are going to turbocharge data centre expansion and imported fracked gas through the new liquefied natural gas reserve will power them. Once again, it will be ordinary PAYE workers who will pay the price for all of this in their energy bills. Most worryingly, we see the Government deciding that it just does not 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 its inability to deliver anything meaningful, but none of the delays relating to the new children’s hospital, for example, were due to environmental objections. There are any number of reasons 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 the Government reverse this decision to disapply the climate Act from the Critical Infrastructure Bill and can he tell me when PAYE workers are going to get a break from the Government?

Sentiment score: 0.04

I thank the Tánaiste. We welcome the LEEF meeting next week and the Labour Party will be supporting our trade unions here when they are looking for pay rises, when they are looking for remote and flexible working rights. We are calling for free and cheap public transport and an expansion of those types of schemes. The Tánaiste did not indicate that the Government will continue to abide by the climate Act when it comes to our critical infrastructure. There are reasons other than those relating to environmental laws for projects in this country being delayed. A lack of resourcing of planning authorities, regulatory bodies and the courts over the past ten years has resulted in projects being delayed. It is not fair to dump on environmental laws. It is not as if our rivers and waterways are in pristine condition or that our biodiversity is in a strong position. We need the climate Act. The whole point of section 15 of that Act is that public bodies can be held to account in the context of performing their duties in conjunction with our climate obligations. That should not get in the way of the construction of critical infrastructure. I ask the Government to look at this again and to reverse the decision in relation to the Critical Infrastructure Bill and section 15 of the Climate Act.

Sentiment score: 0.05