Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Debates in this House on the climate crisis take a familiar course. Almost every speaker accepts the need for urgent action and almost every speaker talks about a just transition. The truth is the term "just transition" means nothing in this country any longer. It is supposed to mean decisions are made in consultation with those who will be impacted and that measures are deployed to address concerns and provide alternatives in terms of goods, services, incomes and jobs lost due to climate action measures. The concept of just transition is important because it recognises we need public acceptance for, and ownership of, the measures that are adopted, but as I said, the concept is meaningless in Ireland.

It was interesting to listen to Government representatives' contributions on the motion this week which sought a moratorium on the development of data centres. The Government response was that it is too soon and further analysis is required. The contrast of language used by Government when discussing matters that affect multinational corporations as opposed to those which impact on ordinary workers, families, farmers and communities was stark. It exposes the hypocrisy and tokenism at the heart of this Government's approach to climate action.

Earlier in this debate I listened to a Green Party Deputy speak of how we need to make it more difficult for people to own cars or to live in the countryside and for farmers to export food. Last night, that same Deputy voted against the motion that would limit the development of data centres despite the strain they are putting on our electricity network and the impact they are having on our emissions. It is those types of contradictions that have led to the disdain in which the Green Party is held across rural communities.

The failure to implement measures that affect corporates without analysing to death the impact should be compared with the speed with which Government will take actions that cost workers, families and farmers. The best example of that is the carbon tax, implemented to incentivise people to use public transport that does not exist in most of our constituencies, to encourage farm contractors to switch to electronic vehicles that do not exist and to force low income families to sit in their homes cold so that Deputies can sit in their warm offices pretending they are taking action. The carbon tax is a penalty on people who happen to live in the places and engage in the work that Government does not comprehend. Workers, families and farmers are told their electricity costs are to increase yet again. What is the Government's response? It proposes to increase the carbon tax yet again. It is as if Government is intent on driving people against climate action.

I want to talk about family farmers who are facing a crisis. Today's Irish Farmers' Journaldeclares on its front page, "Weanling prices at a five-year high". Another way to report that same information is that farmers receive the same prices for their produce today as they did five years ago despite significant increases in input costs and obligations. We know Irish farmers can play a positive role in climate action, but every action of this Government appears to be aimed at preventing them from doing so. The only measures in regard to production reduction have been aimed at our most sustainable beef producers and suckler farmers rather than at factory controlled feedlots. Those farmers who want to enter organics meet obstacles and obstructions every step of the way. The forestry policy of this Government is driving farmers away from the sector rather than enticing them into it.

The Green Party is suggesting we eat less meat. Farmers who switched from beef to horticulture such as mushroom growing are rewarded with scenes of ships containing 4,000 tonnes of peat, having travelled a 3,000 km journey, arriving into Ireland where up to 200 trucks unload the peat that could be sourced here in a much more environmentally sustainable manner. That is the incompetence, hypocrisy and tokenism that underpins this Government's approach to agriculture and the environment. It will result in fewer and poorer farmers and, without doubt, will drive people out of rural communities, but it will deliver precisely nothing for the environment.

Why not adopt an approach that will work, starting with not taxing people more for things for which there is no alternative, delivering an ambitious vision for Irish agriculture which supports and encourages entry into organics and a forestry policy that is good for the environment, communities and the economy, and tackling the factory controlled feedlots rather than our suckler farmers? Rather than allowing the importation of peat from Latvia, wood from Scotland, beef from Brazil and milk from New Zealand, why not add value to those sectors here that deliver climate action in Ireland?

If the Government is to continue on its current trajectory, it should not insult us by using the term "just transition" because it is doing nothing to deliver it.

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