Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Stevenson and Mr. McCaughey for taking the time to be here to share their experience. I and other members of the committee appreciate that. One of the major points of contention here relates to the Taoiseach not having overall responsibility for implementation of the strategy and for ensuring targets are met. I missed out on how it works within the Scottish Parliament and political system. Will Mr. Stevenson explain how it works there? We are trying to catch up in this area and we need to try to implement what is working in other places. How well is the Scottish strategy working?

My second question relates to the annual binding targets. How difficult is it to enforce these or is it easier to implement the strategy through small steps rather than to try to measure it in big jumps? Will Mr. Stevenson comment also on wind energy? I am vague on this, but I understand Scotland has bought into this kind of energy and there has not been significant opposition to it. How has Scotland managed that? Here, there is substantial opposition to wind energy. How did Scotland obtain local buy-in to that?