THE IRISH Creamery Milk Suppliers Association has joined the Irish Farmers’ Association in its opposition to the Climate Change Response Bill, describing it as “lunacy”.
The farm organisations are lobbying Senators and urging them to reject the Bill, which is to be introduced in the Seanad tomorrow.
Association president Jackie Cahill said imposing greater carbon emission reductions than required by the EU was lunacy and costly and would reduce the overall level of economic activity.
“It is madness, as we attempt to grow our way out of the current national crisis through export-led growth, to be taking on extra burdens over and above what is already binding on Ireland by way of international obligations.
“This Bill is flawed and is being promoted by individuals who literally don’t care or don’t know about its full impact.”
Mr Cahill said that while there was an overall EU target to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 relative to 1990, no actual limit had been agreed for Ireland.
Given the importance of the agricultural sector, the Government had rightly sought, and must continue to negotiate for, an effort-sharing arrangement in the EU, whereby Ireland may not necessarily have to meet a 20 per cent reduction target, he added.
“To adopt a self-imposed even greater burden can only be attributed to an individual who has spent too long in what the Minister for the Environment himself has described as an asylum.”
Mr Cahill said that even in the worst possible scenario in the context of Ireland’s EU obligation, the target for 2020 would be more than three million tonnes less severe than what was being sought by the Green Party.
“This amount of carbon would cost some € 50 million a year by 2020 . . . For too long, debate and target-setting on climate change has been divorced from economic reality. This type of disconnect and wishful thinking has reached a new low with this Bill.”