The great ‘Green Dream’ but it will be ‘Micawber’ finance?

The Green Wave is sweeping across our lands and honourable and all as its ambitions may be, it is kind of mildly disturbing to see the different parties and individuals and political parties jostling with each other to prove that one of them is greener than the other.

In a decade or so we’re led to believe that no diesel or petrol cars will be on our roads; no turf will be burning in our ranges and stoves; and there won’t be a chimney to be seen from Ballybane to Ballbriggan.

The pontifications are coming at us from all sides. I read in the Irish Times last week about how some ‘expert’ observed that we were fiddling here in Ireland while the earth burned, and at times like that, I do feel that we are really getting carried away with our own importance.

Last week on Morning Ireland, Fianna Fáil’s Environment Spokesperson, Timmy Dooley, also couldn’t wait to jump on the bandwagon, even going so far as to suggest, that some of our major roads’ projects would have to be looked at again.

I thought to myself about his hard-pressed party colleagues in many far-off reaches of our land who have been knocking on doors for many decades to try and put in place a semblance of a decent roads network through our country

Of course, here in Ireland we can do our bit . . . and we must do our bit . . . but to start pretending that our little country will save the world from burning up over the next century or so is . . . well is just a bit on the delusional side.

While Richard Bruton has produced a plan that crammed with aspirations and ambitions, I often think of the tale of the man who dreamed of living in a great palace but when he woke up with only tuppence in his pocket, he quickly realised, that he was only dreaming.

Now, I’m no economist or accountant, and God knows I’ve enough trouble trying to keep a few bob in my own backpocket, but the thought does cross my mind as to who will pay for all of this great transformation that’s going to come across our land.

One of the biggest contributors to the national coffers every year is the excise duty and carbon tax the Government soaks up out of every motorist’s pocket once they fill their car with diesel or petrol. Subject to the more finite detail, roughly 63 cent out of every litre of petrol we buy goes to The Exchequer while for diesel the figure is about 53 cent.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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