John Gibbons: New fund could be the turning point environmentalists waited for
The budget funding for the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund "is serious money, over the longer term, to deliver real changes, for farmers and for communities," says ecologist Pádraic Fogarty. File picture: Dan Linehan
The true significance of Budget 2024 from an environmental point of view may be best understood by looking at our recent past. Over the last two decades, Ireland’s collective response to the emerging climate and biodiversity crises has been, at best, piecemeal and at worst, recklessly negligent.
These crunch issues rarely merited more than a cursory passing reference from successive Taoisigh or finance ministers, while the actual environment ministry was considered a backwater that any politician with serious ambition would do well to avoid.
