Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IT WAS ALWAYS going to be this way.
Four years ago it was envisaged that having done the heavy lifting and implemented most of Fianna Fáil’s four year plan, the Fine Gael/Labour government would be in a position to offer a succession of tax cuts and spending increases and position itself to win re-election in 2016.
The plan went somewhat awry last year when a series of blunders and missteps resulted in the two government parties pretty much screwing up everything and having, by common consensus, an ‘annus horribilis’.
Such was the damage that Fine Gael and Labour inflicted on themselves last year, there was an urgent sense within the coalition of the need to regain the initiative and outline to the public the reasons why it should be re-elected.
Opposition parties, particularly Fianna Fáil, make much of the coalition’s love for spin, strategic leaks to friendly media and flashy announcements.
They’re not wrong. This government LOVES a jobs announcement, a press conference to say how great they are and, this week, days of Dáil debate to ensure every coalition backbencher gets an opportunity to say how magnificent they are.
“We. Are. Great,” was one Fine Gael backbencher’s succinct tongue-in-cheek summary of the events in the Dáil moments after Brendan Howlin concluded his statement. Another joked that Enda Kenny was off to the Áras such was the government’s confidence in its own excellence.
The statement itself was undoubtedly a PR exercise. There was very little in terms of detail beyond revised economic growth forecasts, a commitment to as much as €1.5 billion in spending increases and tax cuts in the next budget and plans to resume public sector pay talks.
This was the opening salvo in what could be one of the longest general election campaigns in Irish political history.
For the coalition, there is much work needed to convince voters they are worthy of re-election on the evidence of last weekend’s opinion poll.
Putting aside nearly all normal Dáil business for the entire week to outline the achievements of the last four years and make vague promises about the next five years isn’t enough to convince the public.
Opposition attempts to paint it as an exercise in vanity will likely have more impact on many people tuning in today – if they even bothered at all – than the government parties saying how great they are.
Nothing of what Micheal Noonan or Howlin said in the Dáil yesterday will have any tangible benefit to voters right now. They won’t feel the effect of further tax cuts until January of next year at the earliest.
But they’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that there will be more money in their pockets over the next five years if they stick with this lot. Of course, all of that is dependent on economic growth being more or less maintained at its current levels of between 3 and 4 per cent.
But there are plenty of voters who have given up on this government having become thoroughly fed up of the spin and bluster from coalition figures. For many, water charges was the last straw. They’ve now entrenched themselves with the Anti-Austerity Alliance and Sinn Féin. Others are drifting back to Fianna Fáil and may have been enticed by some of the centrist policies unveiled at its Ard Fheis over the weekend.
In announcing its plans for the next five years, Fine Gael and Labour have not only tied their fortunes to each other and outlined an economic manifesto for a second term, they’ve put it up to the opposition parties to come up with the alternative.
The election is on. Over to you Gerry Adams and Micheál Martin.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Does this mean the Greens tax policy has failed?. If so time to scrape there implemented taxes.
@Michael Dowling: because taxes clean the environment , cure cancer and revive people.
@Michael Dowling: It means there isn’t sufficient encouragement to meet targets. So more taxes and incentives are on the way
@Michael Dowling: Bleating on about green taxes, miniscule as they are, is a huge red herring, totally missing the point, and a diversion from every sector’s and every citizen’s duty to change, be they urban or rural. Fuel prices are shooting up and no chance them coming down so we have to do something. Reducing tax and duties on fuel will only have to be made up somewhere else so we have to seek alternatives which must be supported and encouraged by government.
@Jerriko17: miniscule taxes ?Maybe if ur living in the city they are
But for rural people it’s a other naill in the coffin .
Tax take on Petrol etc..all time high most of us living in the countryside no alternative at all
Taxes should be reduced .
@John Mcmahon: Just for your information…. There’s been huge duties and taxes on fuel for donkey’s years, long before the Greens ever appeared. Were you complaining then???? We need to leave the taxes on dirty fuels and incentivise people, rural and urban to change. Living in a city BTW doesn’t make you immune to taxes!!!! In fact it costs a helluva more to exist in city. Also the price you’re paying for petrol and diesel has much more to do with Putin than Eamonn.
Another example of Eamon Ryan asleep at the wheel? Well I never. Now can we have a breakdown of where all these green taxes have been spent… that would make for interesting reading
@Carl Corcoran: What about the rest of us, every sector in this country and countries worldwide is sleepwalking into a climate disaster…. That’s not me saying that, it’s the EPA, The UN, and the majority of scientific evidence. Great gas(sorry for the pun!!) to have a pop at Eamonn but the rest of us have to cop on, take off the blinkers, and, yes, WAKE UP…. before it’s too late.
The government have failed on this with no joined up thinking. Nearly every house in the country has the capability to generate enough and surplus electricity for eight months of the year and 15% of their electricity for the other four years by investing in solar PV panels. The problem us that the incentive is not there. In Australia when you import your excess production to the grid you get a credit for it so that when you import it back its free because its your electricity. In other words the grid is used as a giant battery. In Ireland you will get a credit of about 7cents per KW and then are buying it back for 27 cents per KW. This is forcing people to buy expensive batteries that are causing a problem to the environment themselves.
@Michael Hanley: and what do we do on a dark Christmas eve when the demand is a t a max and solar pv is a at a trickle. The wind is low and the temperature dropped…. Where does the balance for the surge in demand come from……….. I’m all ears
@Baronvoncass: Sure, we’ll have to burn something non-renewable when it’s not daylight/windy, but we don’t have enough PVs/wind turbines in place now, so we’re still burning fossil fuels when it is bright/windy. Our yearly CO2 could be much lower, even if it’s bad on certain days.
@Michael Hanley: bigger problem is the requirement for planning permission on systems bigger than 12sqr meters; it makes it completely uneconomical to install as the payback period is just too long. Now waiting over 12 months for promised legislation removing this to be passed (had been promised for Q4 2021).
Other than completely screwing the motorist Ryan and his ilk are talking out of their hoops when it comes to “policy”
@Baronvoncass: we do what we are doing at the moment. The point I am making is that we could be self sufficient for eight months a year and have a reduced reliance on fossil fuel for the rest of the year.
@Type17: We have approx. 4,200Mw of installed Wind generation capacity, thankfully we don’t yet have much P.V. capacity, when you posted at 2.15 this p.m. our 4,200Mw of wind generation were producing 60Mw, the heavy lifting was as usual being done by thermal generation
Farming now produces 37% (up from 34%) of all irish greenhouse gases yet receives massive subsidies from other Irish taxpayers to export up to 90% of what it produces.
There is 0% tax on all these greenhouse gases
yet a paye worker is paying massive carbon taxes to heat their house and drive their car to work to pay to 50% income taxes, what a joke of a country , run by the agricultural industry’s lobby groups (Fine Gael)
@a h: The figures for farming are gross figures. Every acre of grassland in Ireland sequester 2 ton of carbon per year. Every ton of grain sequesters 1 ton of carbon, where is all this being recorded
@a h: The figures for farming are gross figures. Every acre of grassland in Ireland sequester 2 ton of carbon per year. Every ton of grain sequesters 1 ton of carbon. Farmers are not getting any of these on the credit side of the ledger
@Brendan Godley: these are the figures that eu fines for excessive emissions will be based on , will the agricultural industry pay their share of these fines ??
@a h: food security not important IYO.
So when the new green initiative was announced with their aims like electric cars etc, it was said it was ambitious but mostly unattainable due to the time window.
So now we have the confirmation that this plan and it’s makers are inept and it’s what it is; JUST ANOTHER TAX.
Even the greens are jumping on the insipid political gravy train.
Another example of Ireland being all talk and no action? Well I never!
@Paul Cunningham: we need to stop conflating the inability of the government to run a country with what Irish people in general are capable of.
Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan described the findings as a “clear indication that we need to double down on implementation of climate action measures”.
So double down on taxes it is…
There’s no real plan to get us off carbon emissions. The government needs to setup an in-depth study of all potential carbon free energy sources wind, solar, hydro and nuclear. There is no guarantee we will be able to generate enough hydrogen for backup when to wind isnt blowing to provide a steady supply of energy.
@Matthew Donoghue: Anyone technically copped on, knows that the only way to win this Warming World War, is by a mass movement into the use of Small Modular Nuclear, meaning literally thousands of them, into every existing thermal plant, cement works and all the rest.
“Oh but they’re ten years away at the earliest”. Sure. “We must go to filling the gaps with hydrogen”. Non vested interest analysis from the likes of DW, shows that hydrogen can be got to 20% of the renewables intermittency solution by 2050. We’ll all be cooked by then. How this SMR route would work here, explained in link below.
https://salmonwatchireland.ie/2022/05/13/arather-unique-and-interesting-point-of-view-regenerating-our-salmon-and-rivers-by-nicolas-grubb/
@Nicholas Grubb: people are being fed BS that wind and solar will save the day. Truly large scale projects that need state planning are needed. The sun and wind are only a small part of the solution. For every kW added it does not change the requirement for backup gas turbine power. And yet we have stopped adding natural gas projects…….. Idealism over pragmatism.
With the high cost of heating our homes, we should welcome a small increase in temperature.
I estimate that our emissions are dropping (I don’t need proof like this article)
More green taxes will fix the problem.
This is Ireland. You can’t have one rule for the airport and another for pollution or housing. Everything fails. That the rule.
Increased cause covid lockdowns the year or two before hand do do’s
have your say