Political Mileage from Energy
All the political parties are looking pretty green this time out when it comes to energy. Not only is it hard to tell the policies apart; but, it seems they are trying to outdo each other with the percentages and the numbers game!
The PD’s say they want 30% of the electricity generated from bio-fuels by 2015 and Labour claims their target is 50% by 2020. One plus in the PD policy is a plan to make the ESB a non-profit organisation, I really like that one, and on a probability scale of 1-10 I’d say that one is floating no higher than a 2 (with a 3% margin of error), same as the PD’s popularity poll.
The Green’s, Labour, and the PD’s all seem intent on creating a new Department of the Environment which will only add to the bureaucracy, where do you think all the present employees of the Department will go? Right back into the new one is my guess.
Yes, Energy can be a hot topic and really extracts the promises out of the candidates. The theory is nice, and that is mostly what you hear, the practicality of implementing these strategies is a whole different animal altogether. And if you think anything is new in the Green Party’s statement, "Let’s spend our oil money in Carlow not Kuwait." then you were not around in 1995 when Sen. Cassidy said, "We could give our old age pensioners a £10 increase rather than giving that money to the oil barons of Iran or another country." Twelve years later and still the same mind-set, spend the money before it’s even made (or saved), with no practical plan on the horizon.
In an amazing document, from the files of the Seanad, which could have been recorded yesterday, these very issues were raised on the floor by a Senator Townsend. The excitement and enthusiasm his proposals aroused, and the fervor with which they were accepted, nearly leap off those pages of history when you read them! And there they sit, unacted upon these past 12 years.
Fianna Fail doesn’t seem to have on their website an Energy Policy per se, you kind of have to read between the lines of their Environment and Natural Resources statements; but, they do boast of having the Greenest candidate of all! Councillor Mary Fitzpatrick recounts her green homemaking skills with great alacrity, if she is half as good in government, FF has a winner.
Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael party was in power at the time of the 1995 Seanad debate mentioned above and missed a great opportunity to capitalize on that Energy proposal. He was the Minister for Tourism at the time and it seems everyone in the party, except himself, was embroiled in some kind of scandal or another.
Political mileage will be made from Energy promises; but, who do you trust to drive?
