Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The amendment asks for the timeframe for the first periodic review to be changed from 18 months to six. This will be the most important review because it will be the first. The council is specifically charged with analysing progress made in meeting our mitigation targets up to 2020 under the EU effort sharing decision of 2009. It is unique. I understand the reason Deputies Richard Boyd Barrett and Catherine Murphy would prefer a shorter timeframe, but we have to be realistic.

The membership of the council will be announced tomorrow. The council is not a full-time entity, although it will have at its disposal a secretariat provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. Moreover, it will require a certain period to bed down its operational structures and then to begin its work of collating and analysing all available information and data. It is not reasonable to expect it to do all of this work and turn around a major review of mitigation policy and its implementation in Ireland in just six months. That is not possible. We have had discussions at this committee on the range of issues involved which we could discuss forever. It would be impossible to do it in a period of six months. It is critical that there be a certain period of time to carry out the first review. The work involved will be substantive and challenging and the council will need time to add value and collate all of the relevant information and data available. Six months is too short a timeframe. I will be meeting the council tomorrow when I announce its membership. I am confident that members will regard a period of six months as being too short.