Ireland facing €28 billion EU fine as climate targets unlikely to be met

Labour TD and climate spokesperson Ciarán Ahern has said that the government’s climate targets are in “tatters.”

Last week, Minister for Climate Darragh O’Brien said that Ireland would only reach 50% of its legally binding 2030 climate goals.

Ireland stands to face up to €28 billion in fines for failing to meet its climate obligations.

Pundits have noted that Ireland’s backtracking on meeting climate obligations since O’Brien was appointed as Minister last January is a direct consequence of the government being reliant on rural independent support for a Dáil majority instead of the Greens.

Minister O’Brien told the Irish Times that Ireland is on track to reduce greenhouse emissions by 2030, but well below what is expected of it.

The Minister pointed to the eventual onboarding of offshore wind power to the national power grid, but it will take time to come online.

Ahern remarked,“the Minister’s admission that Ireland will miss its climate targets by such a staggering margin is not new information to anyone paying attention.”

He said that “it is still shocking to hear it stated so plainly by the Minister responsible. We have known for years just how far off course the state is, and instead of acting with urgency, the Government has repeatedly made political choices that push us further away from where we need to be.”

The Dublin South-West TD said that the government’s seeming apathy towards environmental issues “did not happen by accident.”

“It is the direct result of decisions taken by the government to protect the status quo rather than confront the scale of the climate crisis.”

Ahern said the potential €28 billion fine could be “catastrophic,” and that money could be taken out of housing, healthcare, childcare and public transport.

Green leader Roderic O’Gorman said, “real people are suffering every morning because of these political choices.”

“Parents are losing hours with their children, and workers are stuck in soul-destroying traffic because this government has chosen to divert funding away from new trains and buses. This is not just a climate failure; it is a failure of basic social infrastructure,” O’Gorman said of his former Cabinet colleagues.