Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When I was in Canada recently, Peter Julian MP explained to me the way in which the federal and central government works.

It is complicated but it underlines the need for a presence in whatever form in each of the areas, though they are separate or separate but together, as they say.

I return to climate change, which was raised by Deputy Stanton. It is a discussion we need to have. On the one hand, we need to be careful about insourcing everything and trying to keep our carbon footprint low. On the other, we are sitting in a room talking about international exports and trading. We need to be careful about this and keep an eye on climate change. I specifically reference the Canadian Energy Centre. In March and April it produced some fairly big advertising within the Irish media promoting fossil fuels. There was a bit of greenwashing in the advert, which our guests might have seen. Do our guests know whether the Canadian Energy Centre is a trade initiative of the Canadian Government, central or otherwise? Will our guests talk to us a little about the role of Canadian business in promoting oil and gas in Ireland more generally? Both Canada and Ireland have international climate obligation our governments have signed up to. It is a little counterintuitive to have Canadian companies proposing fossil fuel expansion here while we are simultaneously sitting in a room talking about the need for sustainable goals. I ask our guests to talk me through that, because if we are going to look at the opportunities, we have to look at the challenges. There is no point in us sitting here and being all Pollyanna about it. We need to be honest with each other.