Social Democrats TD for Wicklow, Jennifer Whitmore, has called for a significant increase in funding for environmental organisations.<\/p>\n
She made the call after it was revealed by the Irish Environmental Network that its organisations received on average only \u20ac13,000 from the Environment Fund in the Department of Environment.<\/p>\n
Deputy Whitmore, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on Climate Action and Biodiversity, has written to Ministers Eamon Ryan and Malcolm Noonan to seek increased funding and reform of the way money is provided to the sector.<\/p>\n
Deputy Whitmore commented:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are living in a climate and biodiversity crisis but you wouldn\u2019t know this if you saw how little funding environmental organisations get from the State. For example, Birdwatch Ireland only got \u20ac16,000 in 2019, while the Irish Wildlife Trust received just \u20ac15,600 in the same year.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this meagre amount, these organisations do incredible work. I can only imagine how much more they could do if sufficient resources were available to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile many receive funding from other sources, State assistance is crucial to the sustainability of the environmental sector and offers much-needed certainty, especially during the Covid19 pandemic when fundraising is reduced.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only is funding an issue, but the way it is provided to the sector is also a cause for concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirstly, funding coming from the Environmental Fund is unsustainable. Money generated from behavioural levies, such as the plastic tax, is unsustainable because it relies on behaviour. As behaviour improves over time, funding is reduced, therefore it is unsustainable to rely on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cLevies need to shift towards taxing polluting industries such as construction rather than on behaviour, which would generate much more funding and in a more sustainable manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother issue is that funding is provided to the Irish Environmental Network a whole nine months after budgets are announced by Government, causing untold confusion and uncertainty for the sector. Furthermore, money from the National Lottery has been difficult to access due to the lack of a funding mechanism in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be preferable to see increased funding for environmental organisations instead of the Government spending over \u20ac19m on the greyhound racing industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 6, 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social Democrats TD for Wicklow, Jennifer Whitmore, has called for a significant increase in funding for environmental organisations. She made the call after it was revealed by the Irish Environmental Network that its organisations received on average only \u20ac13,000 from the Environment Fund in the Department of Environment. Deputy Whitmore, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jennifer-whitmore","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n