Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim míle buíochas le gach Teachta agus gach páirtí sa Teach a thug tacaíocht don Bhille agus don díospóireacht anocht.

A million thanks to the people in the Visitors Gallery and to the children and everybody else in the movement who are inspiring us all and, I hope, will drive us forward to defeat the type of policies and lobbying and vested interests described by Deputy Boyd Barrett.

I want to address two of the arguments put forward by the Minister of State, the first of which is that this Bill will do nothing to deal with our emissions. As has been said, there is no hard border over Ireland that the emissions do not travel through. The Government might be a little too obsessed with Brexit to realise that it cannot fool physics and nature. This is a global problem. If we continue to extract fuel, then rather than reducing emissions we will be adding to the carbon emissions across the globe. This is the point of the Bill. If we made a find, which would be rare, it would not pay back in spades to the State. I had to listen to a Senator who showed up to vote against this Bill waffle about how great it would be if we found our own gas and oil, that it would be cheaper than importing gas or oil. He had not even bothered to show up when the committee was scrutinising the Bill and hearing evidence from experts who were able to tell us that in the event of any find, there would be no bonanza or royalties for the Irish taxpayer and no massive tax take from these oil or gas companies. Also, if there is a find it would be sold back to the State at market value. There is nothing in this for the Irish people. Most of all, it is ridiculous to say that there is no energy security if we stop issuing licences to extract fuel. There is no security on this planet if we hurtle to a temperature rise of 1.5oC or 2oC. There is no security for anybody anywhere.

Deputy Lawless was correct in his remarks about new politics. He was also correct that the Government is hugging this Bill and keeping it hostage. The Government usurped Standing Orders to ensure its supporters on the joint committee put a stop to a report being laid before the Dáil on a Dáil Bill. The joint committee has no legal or democratic right to stop a Dáil Bill proceeding to committee. Otherwise, we are flying in the face of the spirit of this Oireachtas and these Houses for which people fought for years. There must be democracy. I have no problem with the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, disagreeing with me about energy security, emissions or anything else. In fact, I look forward to the day when he and I can debate these issues in committee, when he can put forward amendments in a legitimate space where we should be having this discussion and where anybody else in this House can put forward amendments if he or she thinks this Bill does not go far enough or it is too weak and so on. We need to be in committee having that debate. That committee then needs to process the outcome of that debate through to the Seanad and the Dáil. The objective of this Private Members' motion is to allow that to happen. It is mean-spirited of the Government to force us to use our Private Members' time in this way when it could have been used to deal with issues of workers' rights, women's rights, the crisis in the housing sector or the health emergencies throughout this country. We have used our Private Members' time. I urge the Government to withdraw its amendment, which is silly. It has nothing to do with what is before the House tonight. The Government needs to allow democracy to take place and allow this Bill to move forward.

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