Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. The overall picture is encouraging in my view as they are saying this is necessary, achievable and worthwhile. The key missing ingredient is for us to be able to make it something like a question of national pride that we deliver this. This is where we are struggling. It is getting everyone on the same page to understand that all of our futures, no matter what business we are in, depend on sustainability. This is the central challenge.

I do not know whether academics and scientists can help us in engendering this spark, which is so important. For my ha'penny's worth, I think a sectoral circular economy strategy in every sector would have the potential to shift the dial. It would embrace all environmental damage and not only climate and biodiversity. It would focus on consumption as well as production. Having cars sitting in our driveways that are idle 98% of the time is a symptom of excessive use and emissions; however, they do not fall in our inventory as they fall in those of Germany, Japan or Korea. It is very much about having a problem-solving framework.

In light of the discussion between Deputy Whitmore and Professor Caulfield, it is not always a question of rationing or charging. There can be more creative solutions and the circular economy breeds this. An example is sharing vehicles. We do not need 3 million vehicles that are idle 98% of the time. We could do with far fewer vehicles and people could still have the freedom of some sort of choice. It would not be a very negative story about not having a bus outside people's door. It is about bringing in other options, becoming more creative and redesigning what we are trying to do.

Another element is that it is not so much about pointing the finger at data centres, which are the core of our ICT sector, or at farmers who are the core of our food sector, and saying they are the ones who must do all of the adjustment. Everyone is in the arena together and we must look at each sector. We need something like this to change the conversation so that we focus on mobilisation and implementation and show people there is a credible future. There is a future for a thriving ICT sector in this country. When we have offshore energy, data centres will be very productive users of it. They will be located in a country delivering renewable energy to fire them instead of being in other countries.

We need to think more creatively. The debate is often too channelled into a narrow "Yes" or "No", whereas really we need to be able to sketch futures where people can still meet their travel needs and various sectors can meet their needs. This is the missing piece in this to some degree. We have the framework. The climate Act is good but Ministers will come in here with one arm as long as the other saying they have not been able to mobilise the change they thought they could. That is the reality. We need to find something. As well as delving into the scientific dimension, is it possible for academia to look at the psychology of how we move people into another way of looking creatively at these challenges, which are so real?