Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Galway is a particularly good example of a bottom-up approach. I was there back during the period 2000 to 2003 when there was a bottom-up campaign against incineration - it was not in a NIMBY fashion but one of zero waste – and we were laughed at. We developed a plan for the county and what happened? The Government removed the power to make plans. The Minister is aware of all that. We collected 24,000 signatures for a feasibility study in respect of light rail. That still has not happened. The people are way ahead of us on sustainability and climate action and yet we still have foolish voices calling for an outer bypass that is going nowhere. It is going into a cul-de-sac, and in the meantime nothing is happening. Let us get back here. We need leadership from a Department for a city that is going under with a housing crisis and traffic congestion. We need leadership. The basic thing to monitor and report is missing and that delay is on the Minister’s side. Some 17 of the 20 warmest years in Ireland’s history have occurred since 1990. Ireland’s first climate change report stated that the country is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. There is insufficient action. I am over my time so I will stop, much as I would like to go on.

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