Sinn Féin spokesperson on Climate Action and the Environment, Darren O’Rourke TD, has highlighted Sinn Féin’s plans to tackle climate change and to deliver a just transition.
Commenting on Sinn Féin’s Alternative Budget for 2025, the Meath-East TD said:
“Sinn Féin’s alternative vision for Climate Action places fairness at the heart of the transition.
“It is a deliverable plan to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss that goes hand in hand while simultaneously delivering a better quality of life for workers and families. Sinn Féin demonstrates how it is possible to meet our targets within the bounds of a just transition.
“The state is on track to miss our 2030 target of 80% renewable electricity production, risking our environmental commitments and our energy security. Ireland continues to import 81.6% of our energy, of which 85.8% stems from fossil fuel sources. The failure to realise the potential of our own wind and solar resources and consequent failure to reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels at pace also left us excessively vulnerable to volatility in the international energy markets.
“From the Environmental Protection Agency to the Climate Change Advisory Council, everyone agrees that the government’s measures simply are not working.
“They are not working fast or fair enough to decarbonise our economy and society.
“The government’s eco-austerity and punitive style measures like the regressive carbon tax are simply building fear and resentment among ordinary people. Workers and families are priced out of the government’s various schemes due to high upfront costs. Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens have locked most ordinary people outside the benefits of the transition to net zero.
“Meanwhile the biggest polluters get off scot-free while those with the most means are the main benefactors of the government’s transition measures – like grants for electric vehicles and solar PV, as well as its regressive retrofitting programme.
“Sinn Féin wants to change all of this. Not only will we move away from punitive style approaches, through supply side investment we will prioritise accelerating the transition towards renewable energy. We will do so in a manner which maximises energy independence, affordability and public ownership.
“In order to address decades of mismanagement and under-investment in renewable energy and grid infrastructure, we would establish a €750 million renewable energy investment fund with a €50 million investment in year 1. This will ramp up quickly.
“By increasing public ownership through this fund, we will ensure that the benefits of the transition are not just syphoned off into the hands of a few wealthy developers or even to state-owned energy companies in other countries.
“It is unbelievable that State companies in France and Norway own more of our wind resources than we do. That is not right. Under a Sinn Féin Government, Ireland’s green revolution would be about increasing national wealth for everyone.
“We will fundamentally reform our liberalised energy sector by expanding community, state- and domestic-owned renewables, and we will address bottlenecks in planning and grid.
“We will also establish a Nature Restoration Fund, as well as measures to expand and restore our national parks, as well as publicly owned and accessible natural areas, including urban green spaces.
“Sinn Féin has the ambition, the vision and the plan to tackle the climate crisis in a way that is not only workable but will deliver a better quality of life for ordinary workers and families.”
