The government must invest in measures that protect people and ecosystems, restore nature, provide warm homes, deliver clean energy and enable sustainable transport.
In its pre-Budget submission, the Environmental Pillar is calling for long-term public investment in nature restoration, funding for a fair and democratic transition from fossil fuels, expansion of retrofit schemes, investment in renewables to be prioritised and greater support for public and active transport.
Karen Ciesielski, Coordinator, Environmental Pillar said: “The Environmental Pillar has consistently emphasised the urgency of addressing the climate and nature emergency in its annual pre-budget submissions. This year, that urgency is impossible to ignore. Extreme heat, drought and wildfires across Western Europe and absolute drought conditions recorded by Met Éireann in twenty stations in Ireland show that the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat – it’s here.
“At the same time the biodiversity crisis, exacerbated by climate change, is undermining the ecosystems on which our health, livelihoods, food security and resilience to flooding, drought and other extreme weather depend.”
“We are calling for a Budget that matches Ireland’s climate and nature commitments with the scale of investment, reform and delivery that is required.
“We need significant commitments in public transport, renewable energy, sustainable housing and water infrastructure, as well as a credible multi-annual plan for restoring nature, encompassing public and private land and sea. This investment is necessary to deliver the transformative action needed to respond to the climate and biodiversity crises, while addressing people’s living standards.”
1. Funding Nature for People and the Planet
- Establish a dedicated, ring-fenced, long-term national budget for the implementation of the National Nature Restoration Plan,
- Commit to a multiannual pathway to closing Ireland’s €699 million annual biodiversity-and-ecosystems financing gap.
- Reinstate nature as a substantial, named and ring-fenced component of the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund.
2. Ending fossil-fuel dependence
- Do not progress with legislation to facilitate the development and operation of a state-led LNG terminal given that impacts on customers’ bills, on public safety and on the environment have not been assessed. Also reject public investment in new fossil-fuel infrastructure for large energy users such as data centres.
- Provide a timetable for the phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies, with safeguards to ensure that low-income households and communities are protected
- Maintain the carbon-tax trajectory and ring-fence revenues for social protection, energy-poverty reduction, retrofit, clean heat, sustainable agriculture and climate action.
- Prioritise investment in renewable-energy deployment and the infrastructure needed to enable it
3. Just transition: homes, heat and energy poverty
- Establish a government-subsidised social energy tariff for households in or at risk of energy poverty, funded from carbon-tax revenue.
- Deliver a publicly led National Retrofit Mission that prioritises social housing, renters, low-income households and rural homes reliant on oil or solid fuel.
- Scale up public investment in district heating, community heat networks, geothermal energy, waste-heat recovery and local heating-and-cooling plans.
4. Building Connected Communities
- Rebalance transport investment to achieve at least a 5:1 ratio of public transport and active-travel investment to new road building, with at least 20% of transport capital expenditure allocated to walking and cycling.
- Convene a working group to plan and manage the implementation of a Site Value Tax to discourage land hoarding and under-use of serviced sites.
- Reform vehicle taxation on a weight basis and redirect subsidies for Electric Vehicles to rural households
5. Funding a Fair and Democratic Transition
- Identify, publish and phase out environmentally harmful subsidies, including fossil-fuel and biodiversity-damaging supports.
- Introduce an aviation passenger tax or a frequent-flyer levy,
- Introduce a virgin-plastic tax, an aggregates levy, higher landfill tax and incineration levy, and reform VAT to incentivise repair, reuse, leasing and refurbished goods.
Read the full document: Environmental Pillar 2027 Pre-Budget Submission – The Environmental Pillar
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