Labour has hit out at the governments climate action strategy after it was revealed that the Climate Action Delivery Board hasn’t met in a year.

The party's spokesperson on Climate Action, Duncan Smith said:

Deputy Smith said: "Last week's EPA figures which indicate that Ireland is highly unlikely to meet its overall 2020 climate change targets underscore the need for action on climate. The Supreme Court judgement in August of this year quashing the 2017 National Mitigation Plan for Climate Change highlighting futile aspirational nature of the plan shows that the previous Government did not take climate change seriously and todays revelation confirms that once again.

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"The Climate Action Delivery Board is important in translating Government climate action policy into concrete action. The fact that the board hasn’t met in over a year is extremely worrying and they cannot use Covid-19 as an excuse as many of us have held important meetings virtually in the last year.

"While greenhouse gas emissions fell in the last year, serious challenges lie ahead in order to secure that the same or a greater reduction is repeated every year for the next decade in order to ensure Ireland is carbon neutral by 2050.

"The fact that the Climate Action Delivery Board hasn’t met in a year does not inspire confidence and confirms that Fine Gael are not serious about climate change. The Board is supposed to act as oversight to ensure climate policy is implemented and that each Government Department does what it is supposed to under the National Mitigation Plan.

"This failure to hold oversight meetings is very concerning and we need an explanation from Minister Ryan as to why this board hasn’t met since he took office in June of this year, why the board has met only three times since it was constituted and what progress it has made since it was established."