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THE GREEN PARTY believes that being in Government is the “right thing to do for the country” as it heads into a think-in focused on key Budget issues like energy.
At a think-in today in Co Clare, the Green Party will be looking at the year ahead with a particular focus on energy and the cost of living, chairperson Senator Pauline O’Reilly said.
In an interview with The Journal, Senator O’Reilly said that being in Government “isn’t always the easiest” but is “the thing that, we believe, is the right thing to do for the country”, outlining the Greens’ focus on pushing for measures that reduce pressures caused by the significant rises in the cost of living this year.
Political parties are holding think-ins this week and next week to convene members as a new Dáil term begins.
The Dáil and the Seanad are due to sit again on Wednesday for the first time after the summer recess, which was characterised by the controversy over Robert Troy’s – and then, to a lesser extent, Stephen Donnelly’s – errors in registering rental properties.
The government will want to refocus attention now on the Budget as it prepares to try to deliver cost of living measures that ease growing financial burdens on the public.
The think-ins are an opportunity for parties to gather their elected members to touch base on policy positions and the months ahead.
“We will be coming up to our [party] convention in November. It will be the first time since before the pandemic that we have an in-person convention – this will be a lead-in to that a couple of months out,” O’Reilly said in an interview with The Journal.
The Greens think-in comes a day after energy ministers from around the EU, including Climate Minister and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, met in Brussels to discuss responses to soaring energy prices.
“A key focus, I think is fair to say, will be on what is coming out of that meeting and our thoughts around the Budget,” the senator said.
Where we are now is that we have gas companies setting the price of energy.”
O’Reilly said that European countries that were most reliant on Russian gas are facing a “much more difficult reality” even compared to Ireland’s situation, but that there has been a “knock-on impact on cost across Europe”.
“We need to see a decoupling of the energy companies, because at the moment, the renewable companies are having their prices set by gas companies and that means that that is then being picked up by the end consumer in all of the various countries.”
She said it is “no surprise to anyone that this is going to be a very challenging winter across all of the European countries, not just those in the EU but European countries in general because Putin is using gas as a weapon of war and we need to make sure that the other energy companies that he doesn’t control are not also being used in a way that is unfair to the public”.
“We want to make sure at the end of the day that we do absolutely everything to support our citizens and to bring down the cost as much as we possibly can from those talks.
“One way or another, we’re going to have a record Budget when it comes to supports, both universal and targeted, for people and their energy costs.
“Almost everybody is vulnerable to those costs because they haven’t planned for them.”
Shortly after the Budget, the government will experience a shake-up as Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar takes over the role of Taoiseach from Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin in December for the second half of the government’s term.
On what the rest of the term holds for the Green Party, O’Reilly said: “I think what we have seen is that through Covid, a huge crisis for the country, and the inflation and the war that’s happened, that there have been a lot of challenges and that this government has shown that it is responsible and takes the steps necessary.”
“We want to see that people are protected and that is core to the Green Party, that sense of fairness and justice for everyone and protection of the most vulnerable. We want to see that that will continue for the next couple of years.”
She pointed to the sectoral ceilings on greenhouse gas emissions agreed before the Dáil recess and said it was “important to do that at the start of summer so that coming into the Budget, we will see measures put in place that will support what needs to be done to bring down our emissions”.
“A lot has happened and there’s been a huge increase in the Budget on supports for public transport and active transport and we need to see all of that continue now in the second half of this term of the government,” she said.
“The government, I think, has its differences. Different parties have differences of opinion but I think that we have been working well and we would want to discuss how we can continue to have a relationship where it delivers what’s required on everything that’s in the programme for government.”
Asked whether the burden of some issues, such as energy, has fallen to the Green Party leadership moreso than other parties, O’Reilly said: “I think our focus has always been that being in Government isn’t always the easiest but it’s the thing that, we believe, is the right thing to do for the country.”
“So we focus on that as opposed to what other parties should be coming out with,” she said.
Another major source of interest in the Budget this year is on whether or not it bring a substantial change to the cost of childcare, which parents have stressed is causing huge financial strain.
A regulation announced this week by Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman is setting down for the first time a framework of minimum rates of pay for roles in the childcare and early learning sector, ranging from €13 an hour for practitioners to €17.25 for graduate managers.
“That funding was secured in last year’s Budget and also as part of that there was a freeze on increasing fees for parents,” O’Reilly said.
“We will hope for an increase in the Budget and that’s what Minister O’Gorman and the party will be asking from the Finance Minister for childcare, for a large childcare package.
“This will be the Budget that will support parents not just in a cost freeze but actually in supporting lowering the cost of childcare significantly – that will be our whole hope and I believe that will be something that people will bring to the think-in.”
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The docklands was wasted on those small office blocks. A Luas and a train right in the middle of it and they put a load of 5 storey buildings there.
I always think it’s astonishing the way Dublin city planners argue that tall buildings in the docklands will ruin the character of the city, and yet they’re happy to grant permission to small ugly buildings right in the historic core of the city and pretend they don’t do any damage to the character of the city. An Taisce, Dublin City council and an Bord Pleanála are all one massive joke.
Look at the state of the building beside City Hall. This piece of crap is what greets tourists going to Dublin castle, madness.
I agree that’s a classic example. I moved to Dublin from a rural area about 5 years ago and I’ve enjoyed living here, but it’s as if the crowd in charge of planning want people to hate the place, for decades they’ve gone out of their way to make the city uglier, more impractical to live in, and extortionately expensive.
Pete St John predicted this nearly 40 yrs ago in his song The Rear Oul Times
Rared on songs and stories
Dublin City Council is a ghastly monstrosity that just ripped the heart and soul out of a beautiful part of our city. Those responsible should hang their heads in shame. Progress me ar$e!
Fiachra, buildings in the historic centre attract a bigger brown envelope maybe?
And after 50 years, still not one building built that’s cracked 300ft let alone 1000ft
To be fair, a lot of people have tried to build taller buildings. But over and over the same people object on the grounds that to have one tall building would “dominate the skyline” – a line of thinking that perpetuates itself endlessly
The skyline has not changed. The docklands had a great chances to build skyscrapers but the planners were too scared.
Welcome to Dublin a classic example of how brown envelopes have the city skyline.
Have changed…
And the phobia of high rise iconic buildings remains. The new Dublin in the docklands should have consisted of gleaming landmark skyscrapers to give the city something to look at, even draw tourists like many cities around the world. But still it’s remained pretty flat and boring.
Dublin with all its faults, still nest city ever, love it,
Dublin docklands is a soulesss mess made up of gee gaws and gob ons where small office buildings with self indulgent egotistcal architects seem to have acted at random and without reference to each other’s creations. The fact these buildings are owned almost exclusively by lawyers and consultants is probably the root cause of this calamity.
Having looked out over the city from the top of the Guinness storehouse I have to say Dublin is one ugly looking city.
Dublin is sadly full of ugly “brutalist” buildings like the central bank, Dublin corpo buildings, Hawkins house, Fitzwilton house, Agriculture house Kildare st, old Motor tax office, Phibsboro shopping centre, Bolands mills…
Along with all the new glass boxes going up..
Must be a lot of Culchie’s in the planning board and government ministers from Mayo etc and the likes who allowed Dublin to be destroyed like this!
Bolands mill is not Brutalist architecture ( 1980′s)!
It was built over centuries (1840-1960′s) and was claimed by DeValera for the Irish Republic in the 1916 rising. It is a fascinating series of buildings, even the 2 silos to which I assume that you are referring to as brutalist?
Yes, the massive silo building is a Brutalist design…
The new Exo building makes my heart sink. A lump of glass, nothing more. A two year old with crayons could up more character. Let’s have a national children’s “design a building competition” the results surely would be far more imaginative than the disasters so far…. Let the best kid win.
I wonder if we could get the lad that did the Pillar to redeem himself by getting rid of a few of these disgusting buildings?
This city has the planning mentality of a European town, not a bit of high rise or decent joined up planning by the different agencies. Central Park down near Leopardstown is one of the only decent office/residential complexes in the city.
Patrick Dunnes Hospital in the old photo takes me back a bit
And one man who had hopes of a development along bachelor’s Quay area, at a time when the country was on it’s knees and they bullied threatened extorted him. RIP Tom Gilmartin
It’s because all the jobs are filled by the least qualified people (i,e the political appointees) ,theres a whole hierarchy of people that continue to get the best jobs , backhanders and brown envelopes were always the run of business. This country would the best country in the world if we actually had people of ability,creativity and ethics run this country.
Unfortunately a good proportion of the Irish people with the most ability, creativity and ethics end up leaving this country – as you said, most of them are forced out through a lack of opportunity.
With sea levels rising, why is no one getting prepared for this, in under 90 years Dublin could be under the waves?
That’s what makes Dublin unique, and tourists love it that it’s not full of skyscrapers like every other city but it would have saved alot of urban sprawl if we built up instead of down.
The 1970s was the real start of the brown envelope incentive to planning authorities…ahem
The Troika will ransack Ireland’s assets like they did with Rome once and that they might again???
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