The clean-up from Storm Amy had barely finished when Paschal Donohoe stood up to deliver Budget 2026, but damage to property and power lines was where the gale’s impact ended.
There was no trace of its influence on the Minister for Finance’s speech.
Despite it coming just days after the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) warned the State was poorly prepared for increasingly powerful storms ahead, adaptation measures were absent from Mr Donohoe’s spending plans.
The CCAC’s wish list did not make the cut. It had included early warning systems and regional emergency hubs, as well as measures to boost rural rooftop solar panels and batteries capable of powering homes during electricity outages.
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Neither were there any of the more radical measures campaigners and Opposition parties pushed for, such as levies on SUVs, aviation, shipping, data centres and other sectors that are high on energy use or big on carbon emissions.
Appeals for the establishment of a national climate disaster register also went unheeded.
In fact, climate merited just two fleeting references in the Minister’s 45-minute speech.
One confirmed the annual increase in the carbon tax and the other mentioned the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund, which was already largely raided to pay MetroLink bills.
This was in stark contrast to the budget speeches of the previous five years when finance ministers, Mr Donohoe included, were keen to stress that climate was one of the priority issues around which spending plans were designed.
“This government has been responsible for a step-change in Ireland’s climate actions,” said Jack Chambers, then minister for finance at the end of the last coalition this time last year.
The new Coalition is responsible for a step back, was the conclusion of critics after Tuesday’s announcements.
“Climate action appears to have fallen off the political agenda for this Government,” said Labour TD Marie Sherlock.
TDs from the Social Democrats, Sinn Féin and the Green Party echoed the sentiment.
Deirdre Duffy, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, was also disappointed.
“There is something deeply ironic about Minister Donohoe’s claim that Budget 2026 will ‘prepare for tomorrow’ and ‘build resilience’ when the biggest threat to tomorrow, namely climate breakdown, has been treated as an afterthought,” she said.
Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy Darragh O’Brien rejected suggestions that the climate elements of the budget lacked ambition. He said his department’s funding allocation was up on 2024 even though it appears slightly less.
He said the retrofit budget, at €558 million, was up €89 million on last year. However, in reply to a question from Sinn Féin’s Pa Daly during the summer, €558 million was given as a revised estimate for 2025.
Perhaps this brings hope that the fund could be revised upwards again in the next 12 months, but it is still not the great leap in retrofitting activity needed to get emissions falling at the speed to match 2030 targets.
Mr O’Brien announced that €500 million from the €3.15 billion Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund would go to projects under his department’s remit.
Large allocations are to go to assist the fledgling biomethane industry to produce energy from farm waste, as well as to the development of district heating projects.
“The measures we’re taking are absolutely focused on working towards meeting our [climate] targets and obligations,” he said.
If the Government goes full term, Mr O’Brien could well be the Minister for Climate whose final budget comes up against those targets, but there may be many storms, political and meteorological, between now and then.
