Catherine Conlon: Government must support public buy-in to tackle climate change 

The government currently does not have the support of the electorate to take the type of drastic measures that are needed to tackle climate change which will hurt the economy in the short-term, writes Catherine Conlon

Traffic congestion in Douglas, Cork. A typical European car is parked almost all (92%) of the time, spends one-fifth of this driving time looking for parking and its five seats only move 1.5 people.

As the budget surplus is set to balloon to a staggering €15.5 billion in 2024, from €9.8 billion this year, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) is urging the Government to consider putting even more money into the National Reserve in 2023 to avoid taking measures that could overheat the economy.

The ESRI said it supports the Government putting aside windfall or excess tax revenues to address the State’s long-term pension liabilities as well as potentially using some of the funds to address ‘bottlenecks’ in housing and healthcare.