Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Stevenson for taking the trouble to visit us today. When we were deciding whether to bring him here, we felt it was easier to hear it from the horse's mouth than to try to reinvent the wheel all over again. Climate is a global phenomenon. It does not change right throughout the globe. I suppose what we do here is as important as what is done everywhere. There is an argument that lots of people in the big countries should be doing more. Recommendation 2 in the report produced by the National Economic and Social Council was that the "how to" should be balanced with the "how much". We need to think about how we can achieve that balance because that is basically how we are going to be able to implement what we recommend in our report. Mr. Stevenson obviously brought a very good Bill through the Scottish Parliament. Is the implementation of what he recommended - the "how to" - going according to plan? We have to be careful to make sure that what we recommend is implementable. I took note of what the National Economic and Social Council said in this regard in the very good report it gave us.

I took particular note of how the various industries in Scotland came on board quickly and recommended targets, etc. As Senator Mac Conghail said, we have a different scenario here in Ireland. I will not say that is the case with all industries, but it certainly applies to some. Mr. Stevenson mentioned one of the basic things in this context, which is how one can bring people with one. We have all been asking questions in that regard. We can learn from Mr. Stevenson's suggestion that it needs to go down to the bottom, basically - that everybody must play a small part. Did he go into the fine nitty-gritty detail in his report? Did he make recommendations that applied to the smallest institutions in the land? We already have recommendations with regard to our own public bodies, etc. It is another thing to keep a check on them to ensure they are doing what is recommended and are reaching the targets set down for them. I will conclude by repeating a question I have been asking everybody. There is anaerobic digestion in England and in the North of Ireland, in particular. We do not seem to be concentrating on that as much here. Can Mr. Stevenson comment on that? I will leave it at that for the moment because many of my questions have already been asked.