Decentralisation of staff at the Equality Authority has been stopped and a controversial cut in its budget from €6 million to about €3.3 million is to be reviewed, Minister for the Environment John Gormley said tonight.
The announcement of the 43 per cent funding cut last December prompted the resignation of the authority's chief executive Niall Crowley in December and, later, those of five board members.
Addressing his party's national convention in Wexford tonight, Mr Gormley said the changes to the Equality Authority was one of the issues that had caused "deep concern and upset in our party".
"At our membership meetings I undertook to have those changes reversed. And I'm very glad to report to you this evening that we have succeeded in our mission. The planned further decentralisation of staff has been stopped and a further review of funding for the Equality Authority to ensure that it can do its work effectively," Mr Gormley said.
"I want to thank the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice for their co-operation in this matter. It shows that we can work out those difficulties in Government."
Mr Gormley told delegates the Government must make "some of the most difficult choices ever made in this country" over the coming weeks in order to secure a viable and sustainable future.
He proposed a 'Green New Deal', promoting entrepreneurship in environmentally sound business in order to boost job creation.
And he said his party's plan encompassed "badly needed reforms in the way we order our affairs" and would help create a sustainable and long-term future for the Irish people.
Mr Gormley said the position of the Irish economy was "grim indeed".
"In the coming weeks the Government must make some of the most difficult choices ever made in this country on reducing spending and increasing revenues. These decisions are absolutely necessary so this country can have a viable and sustainable financial future.
"We are talking about not just about the prosperity but also the independence of our people now and into the future."
Mr Gormley said it had been "a very difficult and worrying week for everyone in this country".
"In the past month we have lost an average of almost one thousand jobs per day. Too many families are facing a grim life without a weekly wage and people with hard-won businesses are fretting they may lose their livelihood."
Mr Gormley said the Government would in the coming weeks announce the establishment of an action group on green enterprise, which would include "some of the best green business entrepreneurs Ireland has produced".
"They will draw up a plan for how we can grow our green enterprise sector into a world class export business, creating thousands of highly skilled green-collar jobs."
He said that from information technology to financing and green energy, the Green technology and clean technology sector was "the economy of the future".
"From Washington to Beijing, governments are now embracing investment in green projects, they are creating green jobs and in sum taking on board a totally green way of doings things," he said.
"Big money is going into renewable energy projects such as wind and wave generation. There is huge investment in things like cleaning up and preventing pollution as well as recycling.
"More and more entrepreneurs are realising that best returns come from industry which operates in harmony with the natural environment."
"United Nations data tells us that the global market for environmental goods and services will double over the next decade to 2.7 trillion dollars a year. Ireland must get a significant slice of that action."
Mr Gormley said such a Green 'revolution' offered an enormous opportunity for the Irish economy "to capitalise on what we do best - developing world class goods and services".
"In addition, Government investment in a low carbon economy and our environment will also create thousands of jobs here."
He said that in 20 months in Government, the Green Party had already taken the first steps in this area.
"This year more than 10,000 jobs will be created and sustained through Green Party Government initiatives. This includes 4,500 jobs in the Government's €100 million insulation scheme, and a further 4,700 jobs in building our water infrastructure. There will be up to 2,000 more in renewable energy and energy efficiency schemes under [Minister for Energy] Eamon Ryan's department."
The Green Party leader also pledged to banish "light-touch financial regulation and the reckless profit-driven bank system it fostered, feeding in turn into developer-led planning and building system that helped create it".
"We will reform our planning laws to put the interests of people - not the developers - first. We will make sure that new towns and estates cannot be built without adequate transport and infrastructure."
The Equality & Rights Alliance tonight welcomed the Green Party announcement that there will be an independent review of the Equality Authority's budget and a pause on its decentralisation to Roscrea.
Joanna McMinn, chairperson of the coalition of 80 organisations, said that the announcement was "a step in the right direction" towards rebuilding Ireland's equality and rights infrastructure and a belated recognition of the damage which had been inflicted on the authority.