Greens have a year to leave a legacy and justify fresh mandate

IN the week of COP 28, the latest global attempt to shape environmental policy for generations to come, the time for realistic and practical policy approaches to one of the defining challenges of the era is well past the need for argument.

We are all green now, and we all wish to do our bit. Of course, appropriate checks and balances must be embedded in the system when public money is spent on carbon reduction schemes. Certainly, confidence is not inspired by the news we bring you today, which shows that half of the homes that received energy upgrades under the retrofit system failed initial inspections, and were certified only after further remedial work.

Quite simply, the State needs to get serious about policy initiatives that will properly incentivise the much-needed transition to a new and sustainable economy based on clean energy and green principles.

We have had four years of the Greens in government. The 2020 election is mostly remembered for the rise of Sinn Féin, but what is often forgotten is that the Greens also were big winners in the pre-Covid poll. However too many headlinegrabbing policies have been allowed to fail under the supposed stewardship of Eamon Ryan and his team.

There have been much-heralded attempts to speed up the transition to selling more electric cars, though the expansion of the public charging network has not matched the growth in actual EV sales, and it acts as a deterrent to others who might abandon petrol and diesel. Nor has the installation of solar panels on public buildings around the country been anything but sluggish.

Too often, after the glitzy launch and photocalls, these initiatives simply do not take root and make any meaningful difference. With one year left on the clock, it behoves the Green Party to get serious about what legacy it will leave from this period in government. If it wishes to argue for the renewal of its mandate, it will require more positive proof of achievement.

We in this newspaper support green initiatives but maintain our distaste for hypocrisy.

Announcing new policies that cost millions of euro of public money must be backed up by accountability, and retrofitted homes must be upgraded to a standard that will actually lower our greenhouse gas emissions.

COP 28 has been dealing with the problem on a global stage.

With so little time left, the Greens must prove they have the ability and commitment to police it at a local level.

DIGNITY AT LAST FOR TUAM BABIES

THIS week, we learned that the children whose short and sad lives ended in the Tuam mother and baby home will, once their remains have been forensically examined and identified, finally receive proper burials.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of this newspaper breaking the first national report of Catherine Corless’s tireless research – that first suggested that up to 796 babies could have been buried in a sewage chamber – it is welcome news indeed that some dignity will finally be shown to the innocents who perished in the home.

Nothing will ever fully undo the anguish of those who lost their loved ones, but we nonetheless share the happiness of the families at this development.

It is long overdue that these forgotten citizens of our republic should be given their due recognition and, in death, be shown the respect, care and love that were so grotesquely denied to them during their brief lives.