Ivana Bacik urges centre-left parties to create ‘critical mass’ on climate policies

By David Young, PA

Centre-left parties must co-operate on environmental issues post-election to pressure the next government to adopt “ambitious and radical” measures on climate change, Ivana Bacik has said.

The Labour Party leader expressed concern that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have stepped away from measures to drive down emissions amid their fears that such policies could be damaging electorally, particularly in rural and farming communities.

Ms Bacik said one of Labour’s first moves after the election would be to approach the Green Party and other like-minded TDs to establish a “critical mass” within the Dáil that is advocating for bolder steps on climate action.

Launching her party’s election policies on climate and the environment, Ms Bacik said Ireland was on course to miss its 2030 target to halve carbon emissions, a failure that would see the Government hit with billions in EU fines.

Speaking to reporters beside the Grand Canal in Dublin on Tuesday, the Labour leader said it was important to bring communities on the journey towards net-zero and ensure there was a “just transition” away from fossil fuels.

“We are conscious and concerned that the three biggest parties cannot be trusted to deliver the necessary urgent and ambitious actions,” she said.

“And certainly in the (RTÉ) debate last night we were not encouraged by what we heard from other leaders.

“We need to see a really sustained programme of investment in measures to tackle climate change and that is why we are proposing a really significant package – €16 billion over five years, to include money to fund what we have described as a national retrofit revolution, €2.5 billion from the Apple [tax] windfall to fund an area-based roll-out of retrofitting.

“People in communities, households and families want to do more on climate [but] they are not being ed sufficiently, and that is why we are looking for a just transition that s lower energy bills, but crucially also to reduce emissions and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Ms Bacik insisted climate action was not the preserve of any one party or political movement.

She added: “After the election is over and the people have spoken, the first thing I will do is go to the leaders of the Green Party and indeed other centre-left parties that share our vision and other centre-left groupings, because we want to ensure there’s a critical mass of TDs in the next [Dáil] that will shape the next government’s policy, that will ensure we take the sort of ambitious and radical measures that we’ve set out here in this programme.

“So we want to see a green vision, an environmentalist vision, and a social democratic vision inform and impact and shape the next government.”

Ms Bacik continued: “We are uniquely placed to put forward a really serious and credible programme of change that will bring communities with us towards that just transition, but we absolutely want to work with as many others as possible that share that vision.”