A former government Minister has hit out at the lack of progress being made for Just Transition projects in the Shannonside region.
Offaly TD Barry Cowen has told the Dail that just €166,000 has been awarded to projects from the €28m Just Transition fund to assist communities to cope with the closure of local power plants in Lanesborough and Shannonbridge.
He also claimed that not a single job has been created since the project launched last year.
Concerns have been previously been expressed at local groups being required to raise funding in order to meet a threshold to draw down the government funding.
The former Agriculture Minister read into the Dail record a letter he wrote to the Taoiseach about key issues regarding the programme during a debate on the climate action bill.
He said that the project had failed in several respects :
My contribution to tonight’s climate change bill debate within which I lamented the poor progress to date on just transition and read into the record a recent letter to the Taoiseach seeking rectification of same ASAP https://t.co/xEDY6iHmNi
— Barry Cowen (@CowenBarry) April 28, 2021
