Cost-rental housing, public transport, and funding for childcare are just some of the Green Party achievements, highlighted by Minister Pippa Hackett as 2021 comes to a close.
“Of course, it has been a challenging year but looking back, we have made enormous progress on moving Green Party policies forward,” she says.
“In housing and transport, we are working to ease the pressure on young people and the vulnerable and we have given households a €100 break on their electricity bills.”
The Housing for All plan, launched in September, includes a commitment to the Green Party policy of cost-rental housing – a system of building on public land to reduce costs, and then renting to cover costs only."
The National Development Plan includes a €35bn commitment to public transport over the decade, with the Connecting Ireland bus plan and the All-Island Strategic Rail Review already underway. Half-price fares are now available to young people (19-23) to encourage the habit of using public transport.
“Reforms to childcare funding will ease the burden on parents and increase publicly funded, publicly managed services,” the Minister points out. “I’m also happy to see that direct provision is being phased out and a scheme to regularize the status of migrants is now in place.”
The Government also supported the Climate Action Bill, the Circular Economy Strategy and a massive investment in Greenways
“We’ve made provision to appointing biodiversity officers to local authorities, which will make council officials more mindful of the crisis,” says the Minister.
“A new approach to flood management has been proposed by Green Party Senators and adopted by Seanad Éireann. And we’ve introduced an Animal Welfare Awareness day, legislated to ban fur farming, and increased funding to animal rescue charities.
“This is a stable government and, along with managing the Covid crisis, we are planning and legislating for the future. Our challenge as the Green Party is to bring people along with us.”