Environmental Sector to boost Irish Economy?
Fine Gael, Ireland’s main opposition party, wants to create an environmental and alternative technology zone which could create 50,000 jobs over the next decade.
Environmental Spokesman Phil Hogan said at the party’s national conference that Ireland could and should go “from worst to first” in the environmental tables and that unless it adopted a new policy would end up paying huge fines to Europe over environmental failures. 70 million euros a year could go on buying carbon credits if Ireland misses its carbon emissions targets, a figure that could rise to 350 million euros by 2020.
Green Profits for the Emerald Isle
Fine Gael wants to make the environment into a national priority, not a minority obsession and to build a sector, like the successful pharmaceutical one that was developed in Ireland in the 1980s. Renewable technologies offer a real competitive edge to Ireland which has easily accessible wind and wave power and could focus on policies for small scale food production and processing to reduce food miles and encourage diversity in the farming sector.
Ireland photograph courtesy of Jim Linwood at Flickr under a Creative Commons Licence
