The leader of the Greens said he is “not confident” progress in reducing emissions will continue if his party is not part of the next government.
Roderic O’Gorman said the Green Party played a central role in reducing carbon emissions.
Last year, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 6.8 per cent with reductions in almost all sectors.
It was the lowest that greenhouse gas emissions have been in three decades, and below the 1990 baseline, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Mr O’Gorman said that Ireland’s emissions are at its lowest in 30 years.
He added: “I’m not confident that if the Greens aren’t part of the next government, whatever its makeup, I’m not confident that that progress will continue, that we will see another seven per cent, that we’ll see the commitment of those financial resources that are necessary to deliver these really important projects that get us our cuts, but also improve people’s quality of life as well.
“I’ve said that since I became leader of the party, we as a party have to be really clear that in taking those steps to meet our reduction targets, the government always have to be helping people, have to be helping families, have to be helping businesses, have to be helping farmers.
“The government has to be helping people do this work to get these goals.”
He made the comments as the Green Party launched its election campaign in Cork.
The Greens are running five candidates in the county, Dr Monica Oikeh (Cork South Central), councillor Oliver Moran (Cork North Central), Cliona O’Halloran (East Cork), Colette Finn (Cork North West) and Mary Ryder (Cork South West).
Mr O’Gorman said that other political parties are taking credit for the Green’s initiatives, including a reduction in childcare fees.
“Some of our measures are hugely popular now at the end of government, and indeed, a lot of people (are) claiming credit for the changes in childcare, the cut of 50 per cent,” he added.
“Look, that’s politics, I’m really happy that childcare is very central to the debate in this General Election, because no minister had cut childcare costs until I came to office, and I halved it, and I did that myself.
“It wasn’t even written into the Programme for Government. It was a decision we made as a Green Party, having heard what parents were saying to us, having conversations I had with my own friends where families were saying, we’re actually considering not having a second or third child because we just don’t know how we’d be able to afford it.
“We took that really significant decision to fight for the funding to deliver that 50% cut in child care fees.
“Now we want to go further if we’re part of the next government, bring in a public model of child care, guarantee the two years of the free pre-school programme as a legal right, and continue to better pay our our childcare professionals.
“We’re also in the area of housing really happy again that cost rental is the centre of the debate because that is such an important step towards providing affordable rental for thousands of people in our country.
“There’s already 2,000 families already in cost rental homes benefiting from this Green Party policy initiative.
“We want to use the Land Development Agency, we want to give it four billion of the Apple money so it can really scale up the delivery of cost rental, affordable rental, and indeed of affordable purchase homes on publicly owned sites around the country.”
