Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

Everyone has acknowledged that Irish emissions are going in the wrong direction and, as a result of that and the analyses that have been offered, our first recommendation is that the national mitigation plan as currently drafted is not fit for purpose. It will not deliver the changes we need.

One piece of analysis that has not been mentioned, as recently reported in the press, is that a Department of Public Expenditure and Reform memorandum from last September has been released under freedom of information. It states: "It would appear that almost no progress has been made on an appraisal-based, prioritised and integrated view of how to meet 2020 and 2030 climate targets". That is a statement made after the mitigation plan was adopted by Government. The advisory council said there is an urgent requirement for new policies, measures and action beyond what is committed to in the national mitigation plan. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, said that we need a transformation of our energy, agriculture and transport systems if we are to deliver on our targets. The official view of our mitigation plan, therefore, is that not enough action is being taken.

We take heart from what the Taoiseach said in the European Parliament some weeks ago, that is, that he was not proud of Ireland's record and that we are a laggard. If that admission is the first step towards action, as is so often the case in these kinds of recovery programmes, we welcome it.

We want to outline today what we believe should happen next and we have broken that down into two sections in the presentation: what needs to happen every year and what needs to happen this year in particular. Every year, we need a policy cycle of both planning and accountability that is transparent and effective. The Climate Change Act 2015 establishes an annual policy cycle but there are too many loopholes in the way it is rolled out. We believe this committee has a central role in ensuring parliamentary oversight and accountability. For example, it is good to see representatives from the Climate Change Advisory Council here today and an independent climate scientist. We believe representatives from the EPA should be here. Representatives from the three organisations should come before the committee every January to lay out the state of the climate, so to speak, following which the committee can invite the Ministers who deliver their transition statements to come before it to allow members cross-examine them as necessary on their performance. Representatives from the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, are here but where are the representatives from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport? The Minister, Deputy Ross, has said hardly anything on transport since his elevation to that Ministry. I believe it is the committee's role, in the absence of anyone else, to be like the Committee of Public Accounts for carbon emissions and to bring before it representatives from all the Departments which have a responsibility to act.

In terms of what should happen this year in particular, I will mention two things. This committee should immediately recommend to the Minister that he formally begins a process to revise the national mitigation plan. He has called it a living document and it is time now to put that into practice.

The Oireachtas must treat the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on climate change as seriously as it took its recommendations on the eighth amendment. Given the workload of the committee, we believe it is worth considering whether a new all-party committee with broader representation should be tasked, as happened previously, to come back to the Oireachtas with a consideration of those 18 recommendations from the Citizens' Assembly by the summer.