"Green" policies are destroying this country

resistance to nuclear is clearly obvious why....

again, modern political and economic ideologies effectively dictates that taxation on wealth should be reduced as much as possible, eradicated if possible, and directed towards labor and consumption, thats you!

whos dictating what?

best of luck with getting nuclear over the line here, i cant see that happening in my life time, if ever, even when i agree with it

taxation alone wont work, and certainly the way its been used, primarily towards the average punter, its just gonna keep p1ssing people off, and that simply wont work....

unfortunately since we wont go nuclear, fossil fuels are here to stay, for the time being anyway....

its clearly obvious, the encouragement of the increasing of herd numbers, was in fact the most idiotic policy to ever be implemented, no surprise who has been in government for that one! farming needs to change, and quickly, but appropriate supports need to be put in place, to prevent farmers from going under, as most would have substantial debts etc. forcing people into cities, well thats just stupid.... it ll be a long time before most of us cant afford cars, so wouldn't be worrying about that one.... not all journeys can be made by bicycle, and most still arent, and probably wont be for a long time, if ever..... we ll be still eating meat for the foreseeable.....

let them bury their heads....

I can't speak for the greens, but Eamon Ryan has consistently 'not ruled out' nuclear power for Ireland whenever he was asked recently.

If you know of any credible plans to build a nuclear power station in Ireland then send them to Eamon and I'm sure he'll get back to you on them.

Or are you suggesting the government should set up a feasibility study or a new quango to investigate nuclear for Ireland? We all know how long these things take and how expensive they end up becoming.

In the Meantime, the greens and all other political parties are perfectly happy importing Nuclear power into Ireland via interconnectors with the UK and Europe. And i wish they would hurry up and get past the planning roadblocks that are blocking the European interconnector for so long

On a side note, if we can't even get an interconnector through the planning process, how long do you think a Nuclear plant would be held up by objections from every crank within a hundred miles of any proposed site

The 'obsession with taxes' is just a bullsh1t talking point that people spew out to object to action on climate change

No politician likes to be seen to be responsible for tax rises, so its very easy for every party to blame the greens for carbon taxes etc even when the greens aren't in government

The Climate Action Plan requires that individuals foot most of the bill through debt. Have you challenged your TDs on this and what did they say?

Will Ryan's cronyism be centrestage tomorrow, will we get a performance similar to his defence of WeeWillie

Now we have newstalk doing an interview there now where the breakfast roll should be banned to save the planet.

Nothing about the carbon footprint of the almond latte and a avocado smashed breakfast flown half way around the world....

You genuinely think that would be a serious referendum?

Maybe you should get a Job with the Tory party across the pond

I think you would find that nuclear may be rejected in a referendum, not least because the argument against it would be dominated by pictures of Fukushima's exclusion zone, as well as scare stories about the massively escalating cost of nuclear projects worldwide

Even if nuclear was viable in Ireland, which it may or may not be, it's a political quagmire and I don't think we have the economies of scale to justify that level of investment (in both political and financial capital)

Even if we decided today, that we were definitely going to build a nuclear power station in Ireland, we are at the very least 15 years from cutting the ribbon. and we're very very far from making that decision.

The Dublin Array wind farm is a 900mw installed capacity (more than most nuclear power plants) , and this is funded and plans are well underway to deliver this within the next 5 years (the planning phase, as usual in Ireland, is the slowest part). The cost of this is €1.5bn.

Compare this with Hinkley C in the UK, which will have 3000mw installed capacity at a cost of €32 Billion, and that's with an existing nuclear infrastructure in the UK, which we do not have.

We can build 6900mw of renewable energy from offshore wind for half the cost of 1 Hinkley C complex, and use the spare 11.5 billion to build 10 more high capacity interconnectors to Europe so we can sell our excess electricity when it's windy, and buy nuclear power from France when it's calm

The only possibly worthwhile Nuclear solution would be some of them new fangled small modular reactors but these are not proven technology yet and there isn't a single instance of one operating commercially anywhere, so you'd be arguing to bring in an experimental unproven nuclear reactor into ireland. Good luck getting planning for that.

Nowhere in the climate action plan does it say that anyone is going to be forced to do retrofits of their properties against their will

The climate action plan announced 125bn in funding to transition Ireland to low carbon with a reduction in emissions of 50% by 2030. This is nowhere near enough IMO, but the government are not forcing anyone to do anything.

It does commit to fully fund retrofits for low income households and provide grants and subsidies for those who 'wish to participate'

As we get past 2030, and we're looking to get our emissions down to zero, then people will be naturally replacing and upgrading ageing buildings just as part of their normal maintenance. By then we will be phasing out the use of fossil fuels and we can talk about who pays for these upgrades at that point in time

we dont need such a referendum, that would just be wasting more time, and money.

authoritarian! say wha! maybe take a trip to russia, or somewhere like that, just to find out what that actually means!

It didn't announce €125bn in funding at all. The €125bn reference is to be largely funded by the private sector i.e. you and me through debt and taxation. From the Plan:

While low income households will get most of the support, it's fantasy to believe that middle income households will take on all this debt.

...we might, just!

It can be done if it is planned properly. Defeatism gets us nowhere

It requires backup which can be nuclear, provided by building interconnections to Europe which we would need to sell surplus power anyway.

Or we can use surplus power to charge batteries, (eg iron oxide batteries for multi day grid level storage) or we could create hydrogen from electrolysis which can be burned or used to power fuel cells..

There are lots of options, we just need to pick the solution that makes the most economic sense for ireland

On individual car ownership, I reckon people will choose not to own a car rather than not be able to afford them. When autonomous cars start hitting the streets in numbers it'll only be a matter of time before people can buy into a pool of vehicles. It makes no sense for 100 people to own 100 cars that sit on their driveway 80-90% of the time when they can have a lesser number of cars sitting parked within five minutes of all 100 people reader to be summoned at a moment's notice. Car ownership might remain a fact of life for rural dwellers, but it makes little sense to own a car in the city.

One thing I really don't like is the government subsidising the cost of insulating with grants. It means only people with some money can afford to avail of the grant and make their homes more efficient. This means the less well off are disproportionally hit with increasing carbon taxes to heat their homes while people with the means can drastically reduce their fuel/electricity bills.