Environmentalists gather for summer school

Environmentalists are gathering for a weekend summer school at Carnsore Point in Co Wexford this weekend.

The location has been carefully chosen as the spiritual home of the green movement in Ireland.

Plans in the 1970s to build a nuclear power plant there were dropped, after opposition from environmental groups.

Director of the Point Festival, former Green Party TD Dan Boyle, has admitted that the green agenda is not being prioritised at the moment.

"It's not unique to Ireland," he said.

"Europe is in an economic crisis, the United States is not very healthy economically either, and the bottom line for people is money in their pockets in the sense of having confidence in the future.

"The Greens have something to say about that. The economy as to be linked with how we deal with the environment. The challenge for those of us involved in the environmental movement is to get those issues back on the agenda and to deal with them in a way that reflects people's say-to-day lives."