Labour climate spokesperson Ciáran Ahern has said that resourcing and capacity issues in state bodies and local authorities need to be addressed to speed up delivery of climate mitigation issues.
The Dublin South-West TD said that his constituency was severely flooded earlier this year, and warned the government that failure to implement climate resilience measures will cost households in the future.
Ahern was speaking after the Climate Change Advisory Council report indicates that the government have failed to treat climate mitigation with the urgency it requires.
The chair of the CCAC’s Adaptation Committee said extreme weather events can no longer be treated in isolation, and are a clear example of climate change in action.
The chair warned that extreme weather events will only become more frequent and more severe in the years to come.
“Clearly, we’re underprepared for this reality,” Ahern said.
“The roll-out of climate mitigation measures like flood defences has been far too slow. Earlier this year, Dublin South-West saw severe flooding, such as in Grange Park and Nutgrove Avenue in Rathfarnham, costing hundreds of thousands of euro in damages to households. A flood defence is currently under construction there that was first mooted more than 15 years ago and has seen several delays.”
Ahern said “the government needs to ensure that capacity issues within county councils and the OPW are urgently addressed, and that our planning authorities are properly resourced to that decisions can be made and objections addressed quickly and projects constructed with the urgency they require.
“We’ve just emerged from Ireland’s hottest summer on record. Earlier in the year Storm Chandra caused flooding across the country, and last year’s Storm Eowyn was the worst storm we’ve experienced in decades. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael need to recognise that Ireland’s climate patterns are changing. Climate change is a reality and it’s accelerating at a rapid pace. Getting our climate mitigation infrastructure to where it needs to be to deal with the inevitable consequences cannot be a long-term ambition – it needs to happen now.”