Dr. Roderick O'Gorman:

With regard to Senator Cáit Keane's first question on specific targets for various sectors, I cannot speak to it this afternoon. I would want to have done significantly more work before I could speak to it. As I did not prepare to deal with that area, I do not want to pretend to have a level of knowledge of it. It links with the question on the shock to the agriculture sector. As I said before, the scale of what we must do is huge and if one must carry out an enormous task, the way I understand it is that one plans as quickly as possible to move towards that target. My worry is that by failing to know what the final destination is in respect of a specific figure at this point, we might minimise the changes we need to make in each sector now. That means that when we finally do know what the 2050 targets are from the European Union, it is then, maybe ten years from now, that the agriculture system will have to undergo an even greater shock than it would have had to if we had been planning for that target from this point. That would involve an even greater degree of hardship for the agriculture, transport and energy sectors, etc. I do not underestimate the scale of the difficulty and do not blame sectors for being nervous about this, but we must understand this is happening. The European Union will implement targets that Ireland and all other member states will have to meet and the sooner we start planning and get the various sectors prepared for this, the better prepared they will be in the long run.

Most of the other questions relate to the issue of independence. Quite a number of other contributors mentioned the Fiscal Advisory Council which has been created under the Fiscal Responsibility Act as a potential model of an independent institution with a very important reporting function. If one looks at section 8(1) of the Act, it states, "The Fiscal Council shall be independent in the performance of its functions". That is a clear declaration within the legislation that the members of the council will be independent in what they do. Something similar should be inserted in this legislation. I say this because, as the committee identified, there are eight members of the expert advisory group. There is a chairman; four people sit on it because of their other positions and up to three others have been independently appointed. Without in any way trying to cast aspersions on the four, they represent very important organisations, but all of them are vested in a particular part of the apparatus of State. It is important for the legislation to ensure that when they sit as part of the expert advisory body, they are not necessarily bringing the specific concerns of the EPA, Teagasc or the SEAI but are coming to it on a purely independent basis. In the earlier draft Bill dating from 2010, only two obligatory seats were filled. There are arguments on both sides. Having only four totally independent members on the panel may limit the scope of the Government to pick really good individuals. Nevertheless, the sectors filling the four obligatory spaces are important. I would, however, have a small concern about the ability of the Government to identify the strongest people available.

On the points I made about reporting, that is really crucial. Again, I refer back to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, of which section 8(5) states that after the Fiscal Council gives its report to the Government on compliance with balanced budget rules, it must be published. Under the proposed heads, permission must be sought for publication and publication will be in such manner as the Government determines. When one looks back at the scandals in the health service or the abuse scandals, one can see we have had a problem in this country in speaking truth to power. If we believe the move to tackle climate change is serious, it is vital that this institution be given the freest rein to ensure the best scientific advice and analysis of the moves taken by the Government in each annual or seven-year period are disseminated to the public. Again, we have obligations under the Aarhus Convention, which speaks to the ideal in terms of access to environmental information. I doubt the Government would suppress a report it did not like, but it would be a catastrophe if it were to delete a paragraph here and there. We need to see the legislation strengthened in that area.

In respect of the targets being justiciable, in my research I focus more on Ireland because that is probably the best area at which to look. There was a provision in the Climate Change Response Bill 2010 that was seen as a guarantee of the non-justiciability of targets. I know that this provision was criticised at the time and many felt it went too far. My view is that I would rather see something like this in the Bill and genuine domestic targets rather than the lack of such targets. If we must ensure the non-justiciability of targets, we could include something like section 3(2) of the Climate Change Response Bill which states:

The emissions reduction targets specified in section 4 shall not be justiciable and no proceedings shall be brought in respect of a contravention of a national plan other than a contravention consisting of a failure by a Minister of the Government to comply with subsection (16) of section 5 or a failure by a public body to comply with subsection (1) or (4) of section 11.

That is an important option that is available. It is important that this section did not exclude justiciability in a situation where a Minister or a public body directly contravened the obligation to have regard to national plans.

It does not completely insulate a Minister from challenge, but it does insulate where there is a failure to reach the targets. If it was necessary for something like that to be included in the Bill, I would include it but with specific domestic targets included. This could definitely be located in the Department of the Taoiseach. The European Union has consolidated climate change issues in a new Directorate General, with a specific Commissioner in that area. Therefore, another model would be to take the legal elements of climate change from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and combine them with elements of transport, energy and other areas in a specific Department with responsibility for climate change.