Dr. Roderick O'Gorman:

I thank the joint committee for extending the invitation to me to speak about this matter. As the Acting Chairman stated, my background is in law. I am a law lecturer, mainly specialising in European Union and Irish constitutional law at the School of Law and Government in Dublin City University. I am also chairperson of the Green Party in Ireland, but I am not speaking in that capacity today.

As the last speaker in this series of hearings, I will not say anything to members that they have not heard already. There will be nothing exciting or novel and I am sure with the long week members have had, they do not want to hear anything too dramatic at this stage. However, I will focus on certain elements of the legislation and look forward to members' questions on these issues.

In my submission, which I tried to keep as brief as possible, I focused on a number of areas. Specifically, I looked at the independence of the expert advisory body and made some suggestions on the way I believe we could strengthen its independence in its ability to publish its reports and ensure they are not tampered with, particularly if they are critical of the policy of the Government of the day.

I also tried to address some of the constitutional law implications. As I said, for all of us, dealing with the advice of the Attorney General is like shadow boxing because we do not know what the Attorney General has said to the Cabinet. Trying, therefore, to anticipate some of the areas that may have been of concern to the Attorney General is difficult, particularly the reason specific domestic targets were not enshrined in the legislation. I will speak, first, about whether it is constitutionally viable in the first place to have targets enshrined in Irish law.

Second, I will address some of the points on justiciability. According to anecdotal evidence, there were some concerns that if targets were included, they might be justiciable and that could open up the State to expensive litigation. Earlier in the week Mr. Conor Linehan spoke to the committee and made a detailed submission on potential concerns about constitutional property rights. My submission did not go into as much detail as his, as I considered he had covered everything. I am happy to talk about these property rights issues if anyone wants to raise any point.

In my submission I also spoke about my concerns about the lack of domestic targets, specifically for 2030 and 2050. The lack of domestic targets will, in many ways, both in the short and medium term, undermine the goal of achieving a low-carbon, climate-resilient, environmentally sustainable economy by 2050. I have highlighted not only the environmental problems but also the fact that by failing to have targets and plan adequately we risk leaving the economy woefully unprepared to make the transition to a low-carbon model.

These are the points I highlighted, but I look forward to taking questions on broad issues dealt with within the legislation.