Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have submitted a number of amendments on this grouping dealing with biodiversity, or the lack of reference to biodiversity, in the national planning statements and elsewhere in the Bill. I will just add to some of the points that have been made.

As our amendment suggests, biodiversity and the protection, conservation and restoration of biodiversity is the poor relation of the climate and biodiversity crisis. Often it just gets dropped in the discussion about the existential crisis that our planet faces. This is unfortunate because actually the collapse of ecosystems and the destruction of biodiversity might well put paid to human existence on this planet long before carbon emissions do. It is very important from a legislative point of view that there is often a trade-off between what is considered to be climate action to reduce CO2 emissions and this is particularly seen around the development of renewable energy or sources of renewable energy and the protection and conservation of biodiversity. These are often important trade-offs where decisions have to be made. This will be very real in this country. We see this trade-off for example when forests are cut down on the top of mountains in order to build wind turbines and then the mountains collapse as a result with incredible destruction following. Turbines may also be built in the wrong place where they might destroy marine life biodiversity. We know the sea and the oceans are some of the big sinks for dealing with climate emissions.

If we do not have the references to protection, conservation and restoration of biodiversity in national planning statements and if they are omitted, then it legally downgrades biodiversity, its protection, its restoration and its conservation in the priorities for sustainable planning and development as against what are considered other priorities. This can have a very real impact on very real issues that our society has to confront. It is a major omission and to be honest it is quite a surprising omission. It has to be addressed.

The Minister of State said he cannot accept our amendments because he is worried about how it will align with the rest of the legislation and consistency in the legislation. I get that but we are all grappling here with an enormous piece of legislation that is extremely difficult. I can see stress on the Chair, the officials, the Ministers and the Opposition because what we are trying to deal with here is just a nightmare. It will be extremely difficult to get this right before and during Report Stage. We do not have a commitment that there will not be a guillotine when it comes to Report Stage. If we were to get a commitment from the Government there would not be a guillotine it would make some difference and give us some comfort as to how we can deal with these things-----