Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was involved in the Constitutional Convention. There were a number of citizens and only a small number of politicians on that convention. There are no politicians on the Citizens' Assembly. The citizens' representative group relish the opportunity to ask questions and get data and perspectives. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is at the coalface of this issue. It takes this matter so seriously that it has appointed Mr. Callanan to his position. Issues around greenhouse gases are being tackled cross-departmentally. Given the amount of time the Department spends on tackling climate change and its continued impact on farming into the future and the level of environmental demands that farmers are required to meet, I agree with the Chairman that the debate was skewed. It is most unsatisfactory that nobody from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, specifically Mr. Callanan, was invited. Mr. Callanan could have been cross-examined. The assembly is capable of doing that. It does not help in the effort to tackle climate change when there is imbalanced debate that throws up a result that does not reflect the amount of work that is being done.