Eco village central to Greens’ vision for Ireland

Aug. 13, 2007 - PRLog -- The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley TD has highlighted the eco village concept as a blueprint for development in Ireland, while his party and cabinet colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan TD, has outlined the ways in which Ireland’s significant greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced.

Both ministers were speaking in an exclusive interview featuring in the current edition of sustainable building magazine Construct Ireland, out in selected newsagents nationwide. Minister Gormley proposes fast-tracking the eco village model, as exemplified by the ground-breaking Village project in Cloughjordan, to deliver eco friendly homes without the heavy infrastructural requirement associated with standard development: “You could deal with a number of issues together if we fast-tracked the eco-village concept. That's what I'd like to do. Eco-villages are great because they're all about good planning first of all – a true eco-village would be located close to [public] transport links – it's about having all of the services there on-site and about having good insulation”.

The State has struggled to keep pace with the rate of private development in recent years, exemplified by reports last year that Castlethorn Construction’s proposed 2,200 house development in Shankill would be delayed for 5 years because of water supply difficulties in the area. Minister Gormley proposes the fast-tracking of the eco village model, where services such as water supply, wastewater treatment, and energy production are typically self-contained on a site, without connection to external infrastructure.

Minister Gormley suggests that the cost of providing these services on site could be offset by scrapping development levies, which typically run into several thousand euro per house: "Should the eco-village have to pay the development levies? If you are providing the services yourself should you have to pay that money out? That is a type of funding in itself. You're not funding it directly from the exchequer but what you are saying is, if people can do this then those development levies aren't required”.

Meanwhile Minister Ryan told Construct Ireland that every sector of the economy would have to cut back on carbon emissions if Ireland is to achieve circa 20% reductions by 2020: “When you have these demanding targets, no one sector can excuse itself. In other words, you can't have transport saying, 'Ah well, it's all about heating.'"

According to Minister Ryan, a carbon tax designed not to hurt low income earners will form a key part in helping to achieve these reductions. " In terms of a carbon levy, I agree with analysis of John Fitzgerald and Sue Scott of the ESRI [regarding] a carbon tax applied at source, which is cheap and easy to apply, and the revenues from which are used to reduce other taxes and indeed increase social welfare benefits to tackle fuel poverty.”

Aside from setting aside €100million of grants for insulating existing homes, Minister Ryan highlights changes in electricity metering as offering real opportunity for reducing emissions, combining smart metering to show the user a breakdown of their energy use with net metering, where homeowners generating their own renewable electricity would see their electricity meter reverse when their wind turbine or solar electric panel is putting power back into the grid: “I would have thought a simple enough system where you can start reversing the meters would provide a very easy to introduce incentive without major contracting and other structures."

Construct Ireland is a bi-monthly carbon neutral magazine focused on sustainable building. One of only two ABC audited Irish construction trade magazines, Construct Ireland has the highest verified distribution of any building, architecture or engineering trade publications in Ireland, with an ABC  figure of  5,376 copies per edition in circulation during the second half of 2006. The August edition of Construct Ireland, available in selected newsagents nationwide, also features articles on a recent Irish built carbon neutral house, on designing-out the need for heating systems, and on how homes in eco developments are continuing to sell well in the face of a housing market downturn. Established in 2002, Construct Ireland is on course to achieve record revenue levels in 2007, mirroring the view from the emerging sustainable building industry that the greener option will prevail in a slowing market.

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Notes to editors:

·    The full interview with both ministers is available upon request

·    Photos of both Ministers, the Construct Ireland front cover and an illustration of the Cloughjordan eco village project are also available upon request

·    To interview Construct Ireland editor Jeff Colley call 00 353 1 2108437

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Construct Ireland is a bi-monthly carbon neutral magazine focused on sustainable building. One of only two ABC audited Irish construction trade magazines, Construct Ireland has the highest verified distribution of any building, architecture or engineering trade publications in Ireland, with an ABC  figure of  5,376 copies per edition in circulation during the second half of 2006.

Website: www.constructireland.ie