Eamon Ryan says EU nature restoration law oposed by Fine Gael must be accepted if Ireland’s climate mitigation goals to be met.
“The benefit here of protecting nature and addressing climate at the same time is that they really do complement each other. We can do that in a way that funds a whole generation of family farms. The way it is presented at the moment is around a bad news story for Irish agriculture, and I don’t agree with it.”
In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Ryan said planning laws needed to be revised so that major projects such as the Metro and Dart Plus expansion were not delayed. “”We have a whole range of projects that are ready to go but the planning system takes such a long time. We have overcome some of that with additional resources being supplied to An Bord Pleanála but we also need a revision of the planning legislation,” he said.
Major changes are needed in construction as well, he said, such as “a massive scaling-up of timber-framed modular housing, which would be a very useful way of addressing the housing crisis but also not blowing our emissions budget”. The Government on Friday said it was not conceding that it would fall well-short of the binding climate change targets. Tánaiste Micheál Martin said environmental measures the Government had put in place in the past 2½ years would “take time to bear fruit”.
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