It was Earth Day on Wednesday.
Following on from National Curlew Day on Tuesday.
Roderic O’Gorman, the leader of the Green Party, marked it with a two-hour debate and a motion calling for renewed action to tackle the energy and climate crisis. It seems the Government’s eco-credentials have slipped considerably since the Greens departed the corridors of power after the 2024 election.
That’s what Roderic thinks anyway. He told the Dáil the Coalition’s attitude these days “is that the foot can be taken off the pedal now that it doesn’t have to deal with the Green Party at the Cabinet table”.
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They’d put the fear of God into anyone.
The debate was held in the morning before midday hostilities broke out at Leaders’ Questions in a session greatly enlivened by a pumped-up Richard O’Donoghue of Indignant Ireland, who got so het up about capping the price of fuel that he challenged the Taoiseach to take the fight outside.
Mano a mano, but no fisticuffs.
“I‘ll do a live debate with you and answer you. There ya go,” he bellowed at Micheál Martin when they disagreed over his figures.
“Live debate. The two of us ... Live debate. Come on!”
What a night that would be.
State Car versus Heavy Horsepower and the pair of them on the undercard for Katie Taylor’s farewell fight if her management team manages to swing that Croke Park slot. Also sharing the bill with a selection of menacing Greens squaring up to mousy Cabinet Ministers.
Perhaps not.
Micheál moved to de-escalate the situation. He had to, before the Ceann Comhairle broke her wrist hitting the naughty bell.
“Deputy, I’ve worked with you before,” began the Taoiseach quietly. “You’re doing a lot of shouting and roaring here today in the Chamber. You’ve asked me about different things in the past, plenty of times you have as a Dáil deputy, and I have responded to you and I treated you courteously. All I’m saying to you is I’ve no difficulty discussing this with you any time.”
“No problem,” Richard brightly replied.
Fair ’nuff.
But back to Earth Day.
“What we need now are big and bold actions,” said Roderic, the former minister for children, equality, disability and putting manners on ministers at the cabinet table.
He outlined in compelling detail just what those big and bold actions should be and explained why the Government isn’t doing half enough to address the crisis.
Among the Green’s proposals was a new, fully-free, solar programme for all households in receipt of the fuel allowance. Eight solar panels provided per home, providing power to the most vulnerable households.
“It will reduce their energy bills at a time we know they can be subject to rapid price shocks,” he said. “Investing €400 million a year for five years – about half the cost of the package that was agreed last week – would provide free solar energy to hundreds of thousands of energy-poor households.”
He contrasted this with the Government spending three-quarters of a billion euro in the last couple of months dealing with the energy crisis, which, while welcome, “is all entirely reactive, entirely short-term and in no way changes or reduces our vulnerability”.
The sweeping measures suggested by the Greens will cost a lot of money, agreed Roderic, but we have a huge surplus in the national coffers. Doing nothing, in his book, would be akin to “an act of national sabotage”.
The Government tabled its own counter-amendment, commending itself on its great work to date and pledging to do more great things in the future. The debate was free from the usual rancour, with considered contributions from all sides and a nice embracing of common ground between the Green Party Leader and his Indignant Ireland counterpart, Michael Collins.
The Cork South West TD said he has spoken a lot about fossil fuels since entering the Dáil, often with TDs “screaming and roaring back at me”. Those same politicians “now know that we cannot do without fossil fuels. Common sense has applied.”
The perpetually fuming Collins was in reflective mood.
“In fairness, I’ll be honest – I need education as well so there’s no point in I just shouting fossil fuels are the way forward and move on and that suits everyone. That’s ridiculous too.”
Michael recognised that renewables, which have yet to be delivered, are “the only way forward”.
He had suggestions too.
Politicians from all sides needed to sit down, form a cross-party group and try to understand the situation. “Maybe with a bit of extremes on every side as long as they would not be getting over-angry with each other”.
They could try to seek a consensus “because there is a middle ground there somewhere and we do have to look after the environment”.
They could have that meeting in Croke Park, adding a vicious element to the Katie Taylor fight night line-up, because there always the possibility of warring sides in the political debate over climate “getting over-angry with each other”.
Although they might be better off convening in an MMA octagon.
O’Gorman was thrilled with Michael’s contribution, which also included a call to ramp up the conversion of heavy duty vehicles to battery power.
“It can be done. I am delighted to see Deputy Collins is advocating for that in his constituency.”
It wasn’t all good, though.
“I’m afraid my efforts to find common ground maybe can’t extend quite as far as aligning myself with Deputy Danny Healy-Rae’s version of history and science. But look, there is only so much we can do in one day.”
In a sentence, after delivering a potted history of natural disasters down through the ages in Kerry, what did Danny say?
“I don’t agree that we on this earth can change the weather in any way in the world.”
A number of speakers talked of the importance of saving the native Irish honey bee. Who knew the Oireachtas has so many beekeepers?
Roderic was not best pleased with Christopher O’Sullivan, the Minister of State with special responsibility for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity, who moved the Government’s countermotion. He said it failed to acknowledge the “very real setback” in climate action which has occurred since the current Government took office and showed “serious denial” around the scale of challenges facing Ireland.
It got worse.
“Minister O’Sullivan had a bit of a go at me because I did not reference nature and biodiversity in my initial 10-minute speech.”
Roderic was cut to the core.
“Funnily enough, I was actually going to give him a little compliment in terms of a bit of good news yesterday in the context of his department,” he said. And, as we all know, Tuesday was “World Curlew Day and that was celebrated by the fact we are finally seeing some breeding pairs come back into various parts of Ireland”.
But, shrugged the leader of the Greens, “if he isn’t giving any space, I’m not going to give it either.”
So there.
Any room on that Croke Park fight card for Chris and Rod?
They could charge Ryder Cup admission prices.
