Mr. Duncan Stewart:

I will take that question and Mr. Healy will take the Scottish question, as I am not up to speed on it. Regarding Ireland's risk of exposure in moving ahead of everyone else, the problem is that we are the laggers of Europe. We must know this. Our greenhouse gas emissions are 1.5 times the European average. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA's projections, we are unlikely to meet our 2020 targets. According to the latest EPA report, transport is projected to increase by 12% instead of reduce by 20% and agriculture is expected to increase by 12%. If we do not meet our 2020 targets, we will face a significant problem, as it will make meeting the 2030 targets even more difficult. The longer we delay this decision, the more difficult and costly it will be to get out of the hole that we are digging for ourselves.

One must consider this issue in terms of the problem, but also in terms of the advantage. By setting clear targets, they will be apparent to every sector.

In that case the transport sector would know what must be done, and it would be similar with regard to energy use and heat in buildings for the commercial, residential and public sectors, as they would all know their targets and what must be achieved. The same would apply to the agricultural sector. That certainty about what needs to be done helps business, including farmers and householders who want to upgrade their house, and it will create economic benefit. We can achieve massive benefits, and Mr. Healy mentioned others such as biodiversity and health benefits, including a reduction in health costs. We will also see benefits from a reduction in air pollution and a break in the over-reliance on fuel imports.

The benefits would be very big if we could only set clear targets to put us on a path where we have certainty so investors can commit to long-term solutions. Investors must see a long-term solution and without such long-term certainty, we will lose much potential investment. We must make the change, and the climate Bill must put a framework in place to create a massive change that we can deal with.

There was mention of the idea of trading off agriculture with other parts of the economy and in a way, that is a choice within our own country. It is not that agriculture must be reduced by 20% by 2020 but rather that overall emissions must reduce by 20%. We can "burden-share" our emissions internally by indicating that the transport sector, the measures to minimise heat loss from buildings or commercial businesses must do more. The problem is there is no easy area to tackle, and as the Irish Farmers Association indicated, there is no silver bullet and it will be hard for all sectors. If farmers know they must meet certain targets, however, they can offset some omissions by apportioning part of their land for bio-energy or afforestation; this means a portion of the land would not be in food production like beef or dairy but in something that reduces emissions overall on the farm. This would also provide an offset and we may be able to put a value on that, even in Ireland. We do not have to wait for Europe to decide these matters and like Sweden and other European countries, we can move ahead of the EU. Those countries are benefiting from decisions, so we should not be looking at minimum levels of compliance as decided by the EU but rather be much more ambitious in what we are trying to achieve. We should allow ourselves a "first adopter" benefit, with the certainty and competitiveness that goes with that. We must see the potential massive benefits much more clearly.