IT WASN’T EASY, but we’ve made it to the end of the year.

Last week, we published a bumper edition of this column reflecting upon the year as a whole. There is, however, one final opportunity to talk about whatever the hell is happening in Ireland as the year draws to a close.

Figures published this week by Eurostat reveal that Ireland is the worst performing country in the entire EU when it comes to how much of our energy consumption comes from renewable resources. At a measly 13.1% we are well shy of the EU average of 23% and in an entirely different stratosphere to Sweden (66%), Finland (47.8%), Austria (43.3%) and Denmark (41.6%). 

It’s an especially poor return when one considers that the Green Party – what with the environment supposedly being their whole thing, and all – clocked up such a strong electoral performance in 2020 on the basis of healthy support for things like a shift towards renewable energy. Now over three years into their latest stint in government, it seems that the Greens have not affected the kind of revolutionary change needed for Ireland to get on the right track with respect to such a transition.

Their 2020 election manifesto now reads like something ChatGPT would hallucinate if you asked it to approximate a Green Party policy proposal. It refers to a “detailed analysis” of “how the UK could move to a 100% renewable energy system” and advocates for Ireland to establish “new National Energy Efficiency Action Plan to deliver such a level of efficiency gain for Ireland over the next decade”.

We are now 40% of the way through that “next decade”. It’s safe to say that the clock is ticking louder with each passing second – both for our climate and the Green Party’s electoral hopes come 2025. 

Meanwhile, a new measure announced this week will see Irish workers incentivised to defer retirement until they are 70. This is bad news for those of you who are not fans of my column, as I’m afraid my future financial situation is likely to require that I make use of those additional four years.

The change means that those who work until the age of 70 will now receive a state pension to the tune of €337.20, roughly €60 more than those who opt to retire at the current minimum retirement age of 66. Boy let me tell you, a digital columnist could do a lot with that €60 a week. Sure, being able to retire at the same age my father did would have been nice, but so would home-ownership and, well, here we are.

Now, we could look forward to the next year, but instead let’s simply look forward into next week, when a certain Ryan Tubridy will make his, eh, triumphant return to the Irish airwaves. 

It’s hard to know what to expect from any new show, but this one in particular. Tubridy’s extremely idiosyncratic energy (you know the one I mean, just sort of pointing at things and saying “Isn’t that a bit mad?”) is one that has always served him relatively well among certain sections of the Irish public.

Tubridy’s on-air persona has always been one of almost aggressive niceness. How will the English audience respond to it? One gets the sense that they may not be as receptive to his penchant for all things John F. Kennedy. The United Kingdom also scores quite high in child literacy, which is one less mission for Tubridy to take on in his new home.

And maybe his niceness will have been tempered by the last summer’s bruising experience. Maybe we’re about to experience Dark Tubridy. Tubridy going goblin mode. Will he claim that he was cancelled? Will he tell us that he has found peace through meditation and spirituality? Will he finally cease referring to himself as “the toy man”? There is much to look forward to. 

His first show will air on Q102 at 10am on 2 January (simulcast on Virgin Radio in the UK) – already pushed forward from the originally published start date of 4 January. Clearly, the man is raring to go. This stands to reason: he’s never been off-air this long in his entire adult life.

We will end on a note of positivity amid a year of pretty consistent gloom. On Christmas Eve it was announced that one of the victims of the Parnell Square stabbing incident, who had been in intensive care since 23 November, was released from ICU and moved to a ward. All other victims of the attack have already left hospital.

Since then, the mother of the five-year-old issued a statement in which she said: “We still have a long time still in hospital, but she is out of danger.”

It is horrifying beyond imagination that a child and her family should suffer the trauma that they have endured over the past month. As the road towards recovery begins, one hopes that there is cause for optimism in her progress so far, and that she will eventually leave hospital and resume a long, healthy and happy life.