Statement from Irish Doctors for the Environment regarding Government response to fossil fuel blockades: Our government's response to a week of fuel blockades is wholly inadequate and entirely misses the crux of the issue. The announcement of a €505 million relief package, comprised largely of fossil fuel tax cuts against the advice of the ESRI and International Energy Agency. Without any accompanying roadmap to accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels, this represents a serious failure of leadership at a critical moment. Ireland's transport, haulage, and agriculture sectors are the backbone of this economy. They deserve genuine, evidence-based support on a pathway toward clean, energy-independent, and socially just operations, not merely short-term placation that deepens dependence on volatile global fossil fuel markets. This is not a just transition. It is a missed opportunity.
Last week's crisis must become the catalyst for urgent, systemic reform. We call on the government to act immediately on measures that are proven, deliverable, and transformative: Immediate fossil phase-out planning: publication, within 2026, of a long-term, cross-sector roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in Ireland. Legislative recognition of farmers as key stewards of the land who must be supported by evidence-based measures in their role of protecting food security and Irish biodiversity. Legislative recognition of biodiversity and nature as essential to human health and wellbeing as evidenced by medical research
Rooftop solar and community energy: Accelerate grants and grid connection for rooftop solar on homes, farms, and commercial premises. Empower communities to generate and own their own energy, reducing exposure to global price shocks at source. This should encompass broad expansion of eligibility criteria for retrofitting and solar panel grants that ensure equitable energy access for all Transition to agroecological farming and forestry: Financial incentives and institutional support to farmers to shift to agroecological methods, especially to fresh produce, which would entail the following benefits: increase our food security by significantly reducing our reliance on imports incur far less energy demand eliminate the need for further nitrogen derogations vastly improve the ecological state of our languishing waterways, 1 in 2 of which are currently deemed to be in a poor state
Electrification and clean fuel transition for transport: Accelerate EV adoption for private motorists and light commercial vehicles Increasing and incentivising the zero-emission heavy duty vehicles (ZEHDV) grant scheme to align with commitment to reach a minimum of 30% of all new Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicle sales (bus and truck) to be zero-emission by 2030. Active and public transport investment: Urgently expand cycling infrastructure, pedestrianise town centres, and fund frequent, coherent, affordable, rural and intercity public transport. Reducing car dependency is both a climate and an energy security measure. Plans should align with, and even exceed, the Climate Action Plan 2023, which aims to deliver by 2030: 50% increase in daily active travel journeys relative to 2022 130% increase in daily public transport journeys 20% reduction in total vehicle kilometres travelled
Updated Statement on Government Response to Fossil Fuel Blockades.
The government is failing to deliver a Just Transition and instead binding us to further fossil dependency and vulnerability - ignoring climate, health and economic science.
It is time to act now.
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