The Government's revised climate change strategy has been criticised by Opposition parties and environmental lobby groups as being insufficient to address Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions problem.
Fine Gael's environment spokesman Fergus O'Dowd accused the Government's of a "greenwash" and said its "death-bed conversion cannot hide 10 years of neglect and broken promises". He said emissions were at more than 25 per cent over 1990 levels - twice the increase allowed under the Kyoto agreement - and that Ireland ranked 22 out of 27 EU states in renewable energy.
Labour environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore said the Government "lacked credibility" on climate change.
"Does anybody seriously believe that the same Government that allowed carbon emissions to go 25 per cent above 1990 levels over the last decade has either the ability or desire to get this back down to 13 per cent above 1990 levels in three years?" he asked.
"The climate change strategy document is riddled with eye-catching symbolic gestures such as 'carbon off-setting all official air travel', but it fails to deal adequately with the core of the problem."
Green environment spokesman Ciarán Cuffe said many of the promised measures would not be put in place until 2008 or the following year. He said Government promises could not be trusted as it had reneged on key promises in the last document, such as a carbon tax.
Oisín Coghlan, director of environment group Friends of the Earth, said the strategy "lacks credibility as the Government failed to implement so much of the last plan, published seven years ago".
Comhair, the Irish sustainable development council, welcomed the strategy, but said that a long-term target and strong leadership was needed if Ireland was to meet its international obligations.
An Taisce criticised the strategy as having "no sense of urgency". It said the principles for action, while laudable, were "vague, lacking in detail and with no target dates".