Ireland at bottom of league table: Worst in EU on climate preparation

Even if only 73 students sat Latin in the leaving certificate last week, that old phrase — in vino veritas — still rings true. So too does another, one that also focuses on how the truth is revealed, on what can often be the gap between declared intent and actual delivery — by their actions shall you know them.

Though Denis Naughten has been minister for communications, climate action and environment since May 2016 he, or anyone else who accepts that portfolio, cannot be blamed for what seems an unwise, dangerous level of expectation. This expectation is so over-stretched that it, deliberately or otherwise, encourages a culture of half-interest and lip-service responses unequal to the challenges scientists and sociologists have warned a deaf world about for decades.