Leo Varadkar has admitted he has done nothing to reduce his carbon footprint since promising to cut down on eating meat earlier this year.
The Taoiseach was responding to a question from the Irish Mirror at a press conference outside the National Economic Dialogue in Dublin Castle this morning.
He famously told reporters in January at the start of the new Dáil term that he would be doing his bit for the environment by cutting down on red meat consumption.
The Mirror pressed the Taoiseach if he had done any more since then to show he is serious about climate action personally.
He admitted he had not, but added that he does not go around preaching to others to pull up their socks on climate action either.
Mr Varadkar said: “I’ve been waiting to be asked that question again for about six or seven months, and I’ve thought in my mind, I’ve rehearsed in my mind so many right answers - and there just isn’t one.
“Suffice to say, I live in an apartment that is only powered by electricity, so I’ve a pretty low carbon building in that sense.
“It’s very hard to do it in terms of transport because of the nature of my job and due to the fact that I do a lot of flying.
“So I’m never somebody that is about preaching to other people about what they should do.
“But what I want to do as Taoiseach, as head of Government, is to put in place the right incentives and the right disincentives that encourage people to make the changes that need to be made.”
Meanwhile, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, was getting flustered too by the Mirror’s question, saying, “I’m going to start thinking.”
