Mr. Joseph Curtin:

I am somewhat worried that my comments are coming across as a little unambitious for 2050. I reiterate what Mr. Brennan said. We need a much stronger statement of purpose and vision than we have in the Bill. As the committee heard from William Fry Solicitors, what is included is extremely ambiguous from a legal perspective. I am not sure what that means, but there are other examples. It can be an emissions reduction target; it could be a statement of purpose, as the Danish, Norwegians and Swedish have taken on. Personally, I would favour something along the lines of climate neutrality. I understand that yesterday the committee heard from the Minister that the vision for agriculture could be climate neutral by 2050. If agriculture can be climate neutral by 2050, the economy can also be.

I am just looking at the facts. If we were to take a science-based target for Ireland, it might not necessarily be a figure of 20. When I conducted that research, I did not go in with a preconceived notion of what our target would be; I was allowing the facts to emerge from the criteria I had chosen. I want to make it clear that I am not one of those people who think we should not be ambitious. I very much believe we should be. Strong regulation drives innovation and there is an amount of research which suggests that is the case.