Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

For clarity, these amendments call for the inclusion of a new paragraph in section 4(2) which requires a national mitigation plan to specify the projected total national emissions for the period of the plan, after all of the policy measures in the plan are implemented. Obviously I disagree with the Deputy's proposal on the basis that the national mitigation plan is designed, pursuant to section 4(2)(c), and already takes into account any existing obligations on the State under EU and national laws. Accordingly, each successive national mitigation plan must abide by our legally binding mitigation obligations. Specifying projected national emissions, after each successive plan has been implemented, would be redundant. Moreover, the Bill, as currently drafted, does not deal with specific national emission levels so introducing the element here would be out of place. That is just a practical issue. We have been around the Houses in terms of debating this issue.

In response to Deputy Boyd Barrett, every country is different. We must look at our own profiling. We have very strict targets under the Europe 2020 goals. We have set ourselves very strict targets in our policy statement for 2050 as well. We would be foolish if we were not to respect the profiling of our economy and the direction in which it is going in how we deal with the issue. The Deputy hinted to a sector but he did not refer to it, namely, agriculture. When one takes into account the deregulation of the milk industry and where we are going as a country, of course we must take advantage of that in terms of our capacity in the production of baby powder and other dairy products. I make no apologies for that. Without a doubt we are the best in the world at it. We need to leverage the potential. I would be surprised if anyone disagreed with me.

I do not believe any sector will be let off. Agriculture will face significant challenges. There will be no special case. We will argue for the best fit for our profiling, as we have always done, and as we do in every other case. In many respects agriculture has already faced and met serious challenges. I reject the idea that we would put in changes and get each sector to individually stick to targets in the process that has been outlined. We must stick to the targets set out in the European process, which are very difficult. I do not believe in penalising a sector, for instance, agriculture, which in the specific area I mentioned is very sound environmentally. It is not just this Government or on this side of the country that we have made the sound arguments outlined. It could be the case that the way the profiling of this country has been done has not been correct. We need to argue for that and ensure we get the best outcome. I do not think anything proposed will allow any sector to get out of meeting its requirements. As a country we must do what we are doing in terms of arguing for the profiling we need in order to meet our EU and other targets.