Eamon Ryan: Despite the personal criticism, people understand the climate science and want change

The climate minister tells Pádraig Hoare he is not out of touch with rural Ireland but we are in an ecological crisis and there is an urgency to what must be achieved

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan leaves the event celebrating the completion of phase one of Co-operative Housing Irelands (CHI) deep energy retrofit programme ‘Improving Warmth and Wellbeing’. Picture: Conor Healy, Picture It Photography

He has become the lightning rod for criticism, the easy mark, the whipping boy — whatever you want to call it — for the Government, but Eamon Ryan shrugs his shoulders.

Critics say he is aloof, out of touch, and too professorial and lofty in his public utterances; his supporters and many environmental and climate change activists view him as a politician who is not afraid to tell the unvarnished truth that change is coming.