We are not immune to the effects of climate change. Ireland is not a country that should be experiencing blizzards, hurricanes and droughts in the same year. We as a nation, like our neighbours in Wales and Scotland, need to declare a climate emergency in order to encourage action among our own citizens and businesses, free from party politics and agenda.

I’ll leave you with this snippet from the Irish proclamation of independence; where the original signatories resolved to “pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally”. I think we can agree that we need to act now for the prosperity of future Irish generations.

Call it what it is – an emergency.