Elaine Loughlin: Sinn Féin is all about change — except when it comes to climate
Sinn Féin claims to be all about change, except when it comes to climate. As parts of Europe literally burn with record-breaking temperatures and wildfires taking hold, Mary Lou McDonald’s party has no opinion on what the agriculture sector, the largest emitter of greenhouses gases in this country, should be asked to do to as part of wider carbon reduction targets.
This is the party which just last week was apparently ready to force an election with a vote of no confidence and go into government.
As the coalition partners wrangle over whether farmers should be asked to reduce carbon emissions by the upper target of 30% or set the reduction closer to the lower limit of 22%, Sinn Féin’s climate spokesman, Darren O’Rourke, confirmed that his party has no position on the contentious but critically important issue.
“We’re not in a position to identify where between 22% and 30% that agriculture should be, or where any other range relating to the other sectors should be,” he said.
Mr O’Rourke said the party is not “avoiding a position in relation to this”. Instead he argued that the Government has not provided it with the opportunity to take a firm stance as the projections worked up by various departments have not been shared.
He strenuously denied that Sinn Féin lacks detail or ambition when it comes to climate change.
But of course, this is not the first time that Sinn Féin has conveniently remained silent on what is one of the biggest challenges facing the globe — the housing crisis and healthcare issues are merely small fish when compared to what must be done to reduce carbon emissions across every single sector of the economy.
During a 15-minute Dáil speech ahead of the confidence vote last week, Ms McDonald took aim at the Government for their poor record on housing and healthcare, and lashed out at measures to protect people from the spiralling cost of living. But the existential crisis in climate and in biodiversity failed to get a single mention.
It was a point that was picked up on not only by the Government, but also by other opposition parties, with Labour leader Ivana Bacik claiming that it was a “strange omission not to include anything on climate”.
It is clear that Sinn Féin’s climate policy is hazy at best, and almost non-existent if you take a less sympathetic view of it.
Richard Bruton — a former minister for communications, climate action, and environment — wasn’t mincing his words last week when he claimed Sinn Féin are the party of climate inaction with no vision or coherent policies on one of the greatest challenges of our times.
“Their incoherence is hardly surprising coming from a populist party who continually offer half-baked and uncosted solutions to some of the biggest challenges the country faces,” said Mr Bruton. “All they want are soundbites and easy solutions.
“The party claims it is committed to climate justice and a just transition for Ireland but cannot say how it will do it or pay for it.”
Sinn Féin last published an updated climate policy in November 2019 — its 20-page Climate Justice and Just Transition document.
In the intervening period, the party has published 10 health-related policy documents and seven policy documents on the issue of housing.
The 2019 climate document states that “the move towards environmental sustainability must be inclusive and democratic. We cannot have just any transition for workers and communities, we must have a just transition. Fine Gael promises the former; Sinn Féin will only accept the latter.”
No one, expect for maybe Fine Gael, would argue with that statement. But what exactly does it mean?
Sweeping statements around the need to prioritise public transport, renewable energy, food security and a just transition might make snappy bullet points in a glossy political brochure, but they provide absolutely nothing by way of insight into how Sinn Féin will actually achieve specific reductions in carbon emissions across agriculture, transport, energy, and business by 2030.
In a paragraph that could be inserted into a policy relating to reform of the financial and business sectors, the document states that “we cannot allow corporate interests to push false solutions and misleading definitions on us”.
It’s 20 pages that give little away.
What we do know is Sinn Féin is vehemently against carbon taxes. It opposed the cross-party Oireachtas Climate Action Plan report back in 2019 citing the proposals around carbon taxes as the main objection.
More recently, members, including Ms McDonald, have spoken out against the proposed ban on turf. They also want to change the current Government measures which provide grants for retrofitting to more of a banded means-tested payment.
The party has called on the Government to replace the current electric vehicle grant, which only applies to new cars, with a subsidy for second-hand electric vehicles.
But all of this is mere tinkering around the edges of a global emergency which we now must step up and play our part to address.
The Taoiseach last year told Ms McDonald: “It’s about time you got off the fence on climate change. Because you are having an each way bet every week, every month in this house for the last number of years on the issue of climate.”
The world has gone far beyond taking a gamble on climate; lofty notions and sweeping statements about a just transition no longer cut it.
The Oireachtas Irish Sign Language (ISL) team and the Centre for Deaf Studies in Trinity College Dublin have been working together over the last year to develop a comprehensive ISL glossary of parliamentary terms. More than 80 terms have been defined, some signs are already in use within the deaf community and some are completely new.
The glossary includes signs for terms including “no-deal Brexit”, “unconstitutional” and “manifesto”.
All ISL users have now been invited to examine the glossary, which can be found on the Oireachtas website, and send their feedback anonymously.
: Apollo 11 landed on the moon. As part of its front page coverage, reported that Buzz Aldrin had brought a piece of Communion bread with him “to symbolise fellowship with his home church on earth”.
: Under the headline ‘Bishops condemn law on condoms’, it was reported that the Catholic hierarchy had strongly opposed legislation to make contraceptives more widely available and had declared that “casual and promiscuous sexual behaviour is always wrong”.
: The revealed that developer Owen O’Callaghan personally contacted then taoiseach Bertie Ahern and environment minister Noel Dempsey regarding crucial planning rules that would see the size of supermarkets capped. The following day, a ministerial order on this was changed.
: As Boris Johnson prepared to take over as British prime minister, opposition leaders in the Dáil said his election raised “enormous fears for Ireland”. However, then taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he wanted to hear what the incoming Conservative leader had to say about how he intended avoiding a hard Brexit.
The Taoiseach is in Tokyo, where he will meet with political representatives, the business community and members of the Irish diaspora. Micheál Martin will also hold discussions with Japan’s prime minister Kishidato discuss the long and well-established political and economic relationship between Ireland and Japan and to explore opportunities to bring relations and exchanges to a new, higher level.
Ministers Eamon Ryan and Charlie McConalogue, who are currently locked into discussions on carbon-reduction targets, will both attend the Energy in Agriculture Conference in Co Tipperary.
The Agriculture Committee will spend the day examining the calculation of methane emissions in the farming sector with a number of experts, including academics from Oxford University, the University of California, and Imperial College London.
Peter Thorne, director of Irish Climate Analysis and Research Unit group (Icarus) will also attend the session. In the afternoon, officials from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Environment, Climate, and Communications will brief the committee.
Eamon Ryan is to launch Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (Zevi), a new office being established by the Department of Transport to co-ordinate and deliver the policy pathway for low-emission vehicles.
In Singapore, the Taoiseach will meet prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and the deputy prime minister and finance minister Lawrence Wong. He will also meet with a number of Irish companies operating in Singapore, engage with the Irish community, and visit Changi Chapel and Museum.
This is the first visit to Japan by a Taoiseach since 2013 and the first to Singapore since 2004.
Back home, the Oireachtas subcommittee on mental health will meet in private.
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