Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to finish the point I was making before the suspension of the meeting. There is a gap between legislation and what people think. While the law and the obligations we have are black and white, people believe changes should be made and we, as legislators, must cross over to the way they think. We must initiate, through them and the targets we are discussing here, probably initially by way of voluntary measures with communities. We must all step up to the mark and try to bridge the gap. Local authorities have excellent conferences around the country. I do not know if there is a local authority conference on climate change or plans for climate change. We could tell every local authority that by 1 September we want it to have held a meeting and put forward proposals on climate change, how each council is going to change how it uses energy, how it organises transport and how it is going to show leadership in the community by going out and encouraging change.

While I am not up to speed on this and the Minister or his Department would know more about it, there were climate change officers in some county councils whose job it was to deal with climate change and proactively, outside the black and white of legislation and planning, to push the agenda forward. Schools are a very important resource, particularly students in transition year. Perhaps we should hold a competition, which the Department might support, to find the best school in the country for climate change. Schools would outline how they are going to change their energy use in school and influence their parents at home. Education and information is a major issue and there is a major gap on which we must follow through, namely, how organisations such as An Taisce inform schools on green schools and how they change. The concept of water is very topical and controversial. We could do much more to bridge the gap.

We could do an inventory of the high energy users in each county. Counties Clare and Limerick have worked together. Tipperary and another county - perhaps Kilkenny or Waterford, I am not sure - did that and had a plan which was signed off by the local authorities and the council staff. It was a plan to alleviate climate change in their communities but going bigger than the county and involving big energy users, for example in a city such as Limerick. I am throwing out ideas in terms of strategies the Department could use to bring about the change or meet the targets, which, in many respects, is the objective of the proposal we are discussing. I would be happy to hear the Minister's response.