Mr. Gavin Harte:

On that point, in recent years we have seen several attempts to introduce legislation in this area, including a Bill brought forward some years ago by the Deputy's party. Each of those proposals included elements of what good legislation would look like. Our view is that the proposals we are discussing fall short of what is required. There are positive aspects of the previous proposals which we would like to see included in this Bill. The major positive we would see is that something is actually being done.

Regarding legally binding targets and how they are included in the Bill, the approach being taken stands out to me as essentially a means of building a compliance strategy into legislation. However, for a climate action Bill to be genuinely effective, it requires more than compliance. We must move beyond compliance to a targeted approach which facilitates innovation and the competitive advantage to which Irish agriculture and enterprise can aspire.

In terms of specific targets, anybody concerned with definitions in this area, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would say a low-carbon economy was one which achieved an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. The notion of a longer term target is not new. As I said in reference to the restructuring of Anglo Irish Bank bonds, for instance, we do reach out those distances to give ourselves direction and focus. The Bill would certainly be strengthened by the inclusion of that type of commitment, as well as the compliance targets, as Deputy Kevin Humphreys suggests, for 2020, 2030 and so on which are negotiated under future agreements. All of that is very helpful and the two processes are not in any way exclusive of each other.