Govt slammed over Kyoto failure
The Green Party has accused the Irish Government of hypocrisy over its failure to make any attempt to implement the Kyoto Protocol.
Ireland made commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the 1997 agreement and has joined the chorus of nations criticising George W Bush for turning his back on it.
However, Green Party spokesman John Gormley said Environment Minister Noel Dempsey has done nothing to implement Kyoto, despite his criticism of Mr Bush.
Mr Gormley said: "Mr Bush was completely up front about his lack of commitment to Kyoto.
"Minister Dempsey, on the other hand, is saying that he supports Kyoto, but his actions deny that statement. In reality, he's doing nothing to actually reduce CO2 emissions in this country."
Mr Gormley said Ireland has no chance of meeting is commitments under Kyoto and he blamed this on Mr Dempsey's lack of action.
"He's been afraid to tackle the hard issues," the Green TD said. "If we are going to comply we have to introduce carbon taxes.
"We have to reduce our CO2 emissions in a wide range of areas and we have an opportunity to do this by investing in renewable energy, which has great potential in this country, but which the Government has failed to tap."
