#Budget19: Hard calls dodged in election bid

They funked it. With the voices of constituency returning officers ringing in their ears the Government dropped the modest plan, flagged by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in August, to increase carbon taxes. That they took this path of least resistance the day after the world was warned of what will happen if we don’t wake up to climate change means the charge of stupid short-termism can be added to the charge of long-term cowardice.

That the Cabinet baulked at a very modest climate protection measure compared to what will be required before very long on the day that a court in The Hague upheld a ruling against the Dutch government ordering them to accelerate carbon emissions cuts just shows why we have failed, and continue to fail, to meet our emissions obligations. Shamefully, this latest opportunity to begin to look the future in the eye has been wasted. It confirms we are far closer to Trump’s drill-baby-drill climate destroyers than is comfortable for a society that presents itself as sentinent if not civilised.