The Government could consider further curbs on climate legislation if it is found to be harming infrastructure delivery, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has suggested.
Speaking in Dublin on Wednesday, Chambers warned of “uncertainty and paralysis” from the “shadow of the courts” where infrastructure projects are being second-guessed due to how judges are interpreting a key segment of the Climate Act.
The Irish Times reported on Monday that earlier this year, officials in Chambers’ department proposed scrapping a key part of climate legislation entirely – section 15 of the Climate Act.
In the final reckoning, new laws designed to speed up the delivery of infrastructure removed some big projects from the application of the section rather than removing it entirely.
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Today Chambers said that balance was correct, but hinted that the Coalition might consider going further if it felt it was necessary.
“I think Government should keep this under review,” he said. “If we see a wider issue emerging of paralysis when it comes to delivery of infrastructure projects or housing, connected to section 15 of the Climate Act, we should keep it under review and we should reconsider it.”
The section requires public bodies, in so far as is practicable, to perform their functions in a manner consistent with the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, the most recent climate action plans, long-term climate action strategy and the furtherance of the national climate objective. It was described by the Supreme Court as a “climate sense check” to ensure decisions fit within national climate policy.
“People are frustrated of 20 years of projects sitting on lists, where they’re not seeing the level of delivery that is outlined in the National Development Plan, and we want to deliver on our mandate, which is about driving infrastructure and housing, and ensuring that we reduce the complexity,” Chambers said on Wednesday.
He was speaking at the launch of the first National Procurement Strategy at Government Buildings. He said that, over the next decade, the State planned to spend €275 billion on housing, transport, water and energy infrastructure and that the strategy would support value for money and enterprise growth. It will also simplify processes for small and medium-sized enterprises, according to Minister of State Frankie Feighan, who published the document alongside Chambers.
Chambers, who is Fianna Fáil’s deputy leader, also delivered a warning to Government colleagues before budget negotiations due to gather pace towards the autumn, saying delivering savings was an essential part of Ministers’ jobs in advance of the budget.
He said Ministers whose departments were not delivering the required savings “will have much more limited room for additional new measures compared to ones who really had a deep dive within their departments and agencies”.
“Other governments are using efficiency levies to create the space for new measures when there’s no growth or when they’re in physical deficit. And I think it’s prudent management to do that in an Irish context, even when we’re running budget surpluses, in the context of the geopolitical uncertainty that we face.”
Asked about reports that the new Government jet could struggle to land in foggy conditions due to the absence of Israeli-manufactured sensor equipment in the model purchased by the State, he said the Department of Defence had told him there were no limitations on the aircraft’s operational capacity and it could conduct its full range of missions.
Asked about Government plans to restore the full level of excise on petrol and diesel over the autumn, Chambers said the current plan was to proceed with the “stepwise” reintroduction agreed earlier in the summer.
“Clearly, if prices significantly rise, we would have to consider that in the autumn, but the current position by Government is that we’ll have that stepwise increase over the autumn-to-winter period,” he said.
“We can’t have permanent reductions in excise indefinitely. But we are cognisant of the volatility of price dynamics and we’ll assess that at the time.”
