"Green" policies are destroying this country

Not really, it is only affluence which has allowed meat to become an everyday staple, its unnatural to the way we lived. There is a world of difference between the old fashioned extensive farming and the intensive meat and dairy of today. Every pound of meat we produce in intensive farms could produce 10 pounds of veg which would feed more people than the meat. I have lived as a vegetarian for 30years and I am probably healthier than most meat eaters I know. But I advocate people cut down their meat consumpton to more traditional levels, in the region of 10% of their overall diet. That would take us a long way along the path to sustainability in farming.

Meat eating has been around for a couple of million years and cooked meat nearly one million so not sure why you imagine it to be unnatural. It was the calories, nutrients and ease of digestion that brought it into our diet.

My point has been that our policy is to provide nationally 70% of our needs through the national grid by way of green energy. Far as I can see other than doing so using wind energy there really isn`t any other source being given much, if indeed ny, consideration. When the wind drops it will not be just a case of each household individually making up this 70% shortfall using solar panels. With shortfall there will be blackouts so that 70% shortfall will then become 100% shortfall for individual houses.

On your house in Athlone I`m not saying you are wrong, but the figures I provided as to the area of solar panels require to provide both 100% energy and 70% for the average Irish household of 4,200 Kw per annum are based on the figure for ! sq meter of solar panel producing 150 watts on a sunny summers day, were provided by Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, and the area required does appear to be at variance with your figure.

GP were rejected in the constituency I live in, you're dreaming if you think these parties are populour outside the well off urban areas.

Rural voters and people in less well off urban areas hate them

No, I just challenged your claim of it being unnatural and life expectancy rates suggests this claim is untrue as well - it was 72 here in 1980 and had little changed in the previous twenty years. If you mean they had fewer lifestyle issues like obesity I'd agree but that's an outcome of our own far more sedentary and junk-filled lifestyles.

Sure but it's their single target approach that people have issues with. The solutions will ultimately be massively multi-faceted, something the Greens are not good at.

They are building more sustainable capacity than practically any country in the world, they are doing as much or more than most advanced countries. They are the primary manufacturer of all of the solar PV in the world as are they the largest manufacturer of Lithium technology batteries - all contributing towards lowering everyones carbon footprint. They aint the bad guys but I am really not sure about the like of yourself.

Nuclear is not a solution:

"Cheap dreams, expensive realities

In the dawn of the nuclear era, cost was expected to be one of the technology's advantages, not one of its drawbacks. The first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, predicted in a 1954 speech that nuclear power would someday make electricity “too cheap to meter.”

A half century later, we have learned that nuclear power is, instead, too expensive to finance.

The first generation of nuclear power plants proved so costly to build that half of them were abandoned during construction. Those that were completed saw huge cost overruns, which were passed on to utility customers in the form of rate increases. By 1985, Forbes had labeled U.S. nuclear power "the largest managerial disaster in business history.”

The industry has failed to prove that things will be different this time around: soaring, uncertain costs continue to plague nuclear power in the 21st century. Between 2002 and 2008, for example, cost estimates for new nuclear plant construction rose from between $2 billion and $4 billion per unit to $9 billion per unit, according to a 2009 UCS report, while experience with new construction in Europe has seen costs continue to soar."

............

If we want to reduce the climate impact of electric power generation in the United States, there are less costly and risky ways to do it than expanding nuclear power. A 2011 UCS analysis of new nuclear projects in Florida and Georgia shows that the power provided by the new plants would be (more expensive per kilowatt than several

alternatives)[https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear-power-and-our-energy-choices/nuclear-power-costs/nuclear-power-projects-risky.html], including energy efficiency measures, renewable energy sources such as Biomass and wind, and new natural gas plants."

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/nuclear-power-cost

it is to expensive and no where near as reliable as its advocates claim. We would need at least 3 and probably four nuclear power plants for reliable supply all year round - other wise half of the grid could drop off at the drop of a hat. Estimates for new build plants in the UK are running at over £15 billion per plant meaning Ireland would need to find £45 billion to build the dream of Irish Nuclear. There is also the not inconsiderable hurdle that Uranium is a finite resource and increasing demand is pushing prices up for the raw fuel.

Meanwhile the very achievable "Spirit of Ireland" project could make us net exporters of wind electricity and the pumped storage capitol of Europe with the ability to buy in excess cheap overproduction of sustainables and sell it back at peak times for profit. Even if we were to allow for the sort of cost overruns typically experienced by nuclear we could build multiple Spirit of Ireland projects for the cost of a viable nuclear fleet and have a far more reliable grid to boot. This is the sort of visionary project which actually makes sustainable energy a reliable future for our energy needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ireland

Nuclear for Ireland is a pipe dream and if you are advocating for Nuclear in Ireland you are referencing dishonest sources.

Nuclear fusion will eventually be the replacement for everything but it's still a very long way away.

You obviously didn't read a word I wrote. Nuclear cannot save the planet because its to slow and to expensive and doesn't actually save as much carbon as the equivalent wind/solar.

I see the likes of Brid Smith and Boy Barrett are very concerned about the rising gas prices, these are the clown that was front and centre to getting gas and oil exploration banned off our coasts, someone would want to remind them what happens when you depend on other for supply, no control on price or supply.

Having these populist clowns is not only stupid but dangerous to the people that they are supposed to represent.