"Green" policies are destroying this country

There seem to be only one person on here "ranting and raving". I wonder who would that be. Pot kettle black comes to mind.

Not uncommon for greenhouses in the Netherlands to get damaged due to hail storms. And lets not forget the freak hail storm that effected Enniscorthy last July. So while rare, can't write off the possibility that solar panels could get damaged here, in Ireland from hail storms.

If by impoverished you mean Irish people live in smaller houses and drive smaller cars then that is progress to a more sustainable future.

Not sure if its a smartarse reply but nope.

Ya know the way we're told it's a climate emergency, and everyone has to do more. Well according to this, 40% of the people couldn't give a fiddlers

https://www.newstalk.com/news/a-massive-ecological-cost-is-it-time-to-ration-flights-for-climate-change-1712106#Echobox=1712138886

Now the contributor here, John Gibbons, wouldn't be pissed on by me if he was on fire. He's full of waffle and speaks out of both sides of his mouth in a "do as I say, not as I do" approach. His last line though, I do agree with.

Mr Gibbons called for airline tickets and aviation fuel to be fully taxed in order to reduce airlines' ability to offer cheap flights.

I've even suggested on this very thread that each km travelled should incur the price of the carbon emitted for each km.

What would you read this as

New figures show that 40% of Irish people are planning to go on three or more overseas holidays this year.

I mentioned Liverpool for the pedestrianisation they have deployed around that area. It's done well. What else goes on wasn't mentioned. Are you suggesting we shouldn't pedestrianise anywhere because shady behaviour is curtailed due to cars being about?

You could increase the tax on air travel to the level that only a minority can afford to fly, but if you had a wet, cold, miserable period of weather in the last two weeks of July or the first two weeks of August then politicians could quickly find out what the phrase "Let them eat cake" stands for.

You could always give everyone a certain annual allocation of air miles, where similar to the entitlements scheme in agriculture, they could sell if not using them. That would encourage people to stay in the country, give them more money to spend while doing so, and reduce the numbers flying.

No great difference from taxing the bo;;ox out of air travel other than cutting out another green tax money making scheme for governments.

Ireland's attemps to flush good money down the toilet on green boondoggles is becoming farcical. From the Business Post's ESG briefing:

Why Ireland is unique in its massive climate spending plans

With climate change requiring governments to step in with new spending plans to support the energy transition, many European member states are wondering where they are going to be able to find the extra cash.
At a recent meeting of energy ministers at the International Energy Agency in Paris, Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister, told delegates that governments were facing “huge fiscal difficulties” due to large public debt following the Covid and energy inflation crises, and therefore Europe “could not count on more public funding” for the energy transition and fight against climate change.
“There is no possibility for us to put much more money on the table,” Le Maire said, instead advocating for significant increases in private investment.
In Ireland, we are having a slightly different conversation.
Buoyed by our bumper corporate tax receipts, capital and current spending by the government on climate initiatives remains high here, and plans are afoot to futureproof that high level of climate spending, even long after this government has left office.
As I reported at the weekend, a new €14 billion infrastructure fund will be utilised only for environmental projects this decade, unless there is an economic downturn, according to newly published legislation.
The new Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund will act exclusively as a reserve for environmental spending, and will only be opened up for other infrastructure projects if there is a “deterioration in the economic or fiscal position of the state”.
It is one of two new funds being established to house some of the excess corporate tax receipts flowing into state coffers, along with the other €100 billion Future Ireland Fund. 
That will not be deployed until 2041 at the earliest and is intended to help manage the costs to the state of an ageing population, as well as other issues.
But the smaller €14 billion infrastructure fund will be open to ministers for additional spending from 2026.
Those environmental projects are defined as including projects that contribute directly or indirectly to the “reduction of greenhouse emissions”, actions under the National Biodiversity Action Plan, marine strategy objectives, and water initiatives.
The fund will only be further opened up to non-environmental projects in the event that the minister for public expenditure has determined that the “deterioration… in the economic or fiscal position of the state is of such significance that it would be appropriate to make a payment” and following a Dáil vote.
It is a significant public fiscal innovation that seeks to futureproof climate and nature spending. And it is one that is happening only because of Ireland’s unique position as the taxable jurisdiction for some of the highest earning multinationals in the world.

While other countries point out that they have other infrastructure priorities, Ireland — with its own plethora of infrastructure woes — ringfences eye-watering amounts of money for future green spending. We literally can't spend the money fast enough so we lock it away until we can.

Excess cash often leads to malinvestment. Ireland is determined to be a shining example of that. It's not like it's going to make one millikelvin of difference to global climate change. What it may well do is drive away those multinationals that are contributing to the surplus we're so determined to piss away.

I did some fag box sums on it before. I thought I posted in this thread but I can't see it. Anyway, the carbon tax is €56/t in Ireland now. According to this, the carbon per km on a 737 is 115g per person per km. Then on a typical flight between Dublin and Gran Canaria, that's ~2912km. That works out at about €18.75 per trip. Hardly gonna break anyone.

(note here that there's assumptions galore like the plane is fairly full, distances are half right, data on emissions is correct, etc)

100% agree. One thing though, we'd only charge it on the outbound flight. It may be different on the return based on the carbon prices from whatever country you start in. Really needs to be a pan EU, nay, worldwide thing. Otherwise, as usual, we're pissing away against the wind on our own.

It would give more tax to the government (no bad thing to spread the tax burden) and it would achieve the same as the carbon tax - sweet FA!

This snippet gives the pure virtue-signalling game away:

[..] has determined that the “deterioration… in the economic or fiscal position of the state is of such significance that it would be appropriate to make a payment” [..].

I'd guess any sort of recession would get classified as significant and 17 years is a long time to go without some sort of economic hiccup.