Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will refer to a couple of issues. On climate change, I was surprised to hear the Minister say that the effort does not fall to his Department alone. We accept that with regard to energy efficiency and renewable energy. Notwithstanding that, his Department has been given a title that includes the phrase "climate action", which sends out a message that he will take a lead on that. I hope he will not fall into the trap whereby he will say it is not his responsibility and that others need to come to the table as well. We need a driver with regard to climate action and climate change, and that needs to happen very quickly. The Minister is well aware of the implications of agreements recently reached and other targets that will be set further out to 2030, so we need a co-ordinated policy from the Minister. I am sure the battle will be at the Cabinet table, and we expect him to win on that.

In terms of transport, the message that seems to be coming from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport is that it requires more taxation in terms of the equalisation of the charges on diesel and petrol and that this would solve its responsibility, but it would not. We all know that the transport sector is way behind. In truth, if we are to make some changes in the transport sector, it is not about moving people from using diesel to using petrol. To that extent, has the Minister any plans to enhance the use of electric vehicles? I read some material during the summer about what the Norwegians have done. They expect to have moved away from the use of petrol and diesel for all domestic vehicles and some lighter commercial vehicles by 2025. That is an ambitious plan, but those are the types of ideas we would need to see coming from the Minister’s Department. It should set out the vision, let the other Departments follow, and have the battle lines drawn in that respect. The Minister will have to go big and bold in that regard if he is to achieve a shift away from fossil fuels. We would like to hear some comments on that.

The Minister spoke about the funding of public service broadcasting and the issue having been bounced around in the media. That is the case. Very early on in his tenure, he identified one source of funding-----