Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee for taking Committee Stage of the Bill, which is important. It was introduced with symbolic and substantive intentions and seeks to focus attention on the urgent need to increase climate action and ambition, including the need to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels if the temperature limits adopted in the Paris Agreement are to be achievable. It is also a direct response to the commitment signed up to by the Government under Article 2 of the Paris Agreement to bring financial flows into line with decarbonisation commitments.

The context of the need for a significant increase in ambition in Ireland is worth noting. Our Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, stated in its November 2017 annual report that Ireland was not on a pathway to economy-wide decarbonisation by 2050. It also stated: "However, to achieve Ireland’s objective of decarbonisation, major new policies and measures, along with changes in current practices are required."

In November 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, said in a press statement that the overall emission trends were increasing, making the achievement of Ireland's long-term decarbonisation goals more difficult. In The Irish Timesin January, Mr. Joseph Curtin, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International and European Affairs, IIEA, and a member of the CCAC, wrote: "Ireland has failed to get to grips with its climate targets. Over the past month, the Citizens’ Assembly, the Climate Change Advisory Council, and the Environmental Protection Agency have all called for urgent new measures to meet Ireland’s climate obligations."

There are high levels of public and political support and the passage of this Bill on Second Stage received significant international media interest. There have been a considerable number of high-profile fossil fuel divestment decisions in recent years, including by major universities such as Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway, and by major cities across the world. Even the Rockefeller Foundation, a family fortune built on the extraction of fossil fuels, has announced divestment. In late 2017, the World Bank announced that it would no longer fund upstream oil and gas from 2019. In January 2018, New York became the most recent major city to announce its intention to divest. This Bill would make Ireland the first state to divest itself from fossil fuels and secure that commitment in legislation.

The Bill has never been about questioning the performance of our institutions, the intentions of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, or any Government agency. It is about the fact that we all need to do much more at all levels if we are to deliver on the commitments that were made in everyone's interests in the Paris Agreement.

I will take this opportunity to offer my thanks to the Department of Finance officials who were helpful during my negotiations with them in recent weeks - Mr. Eoin Brogan, Mr. Anthony Malone and Mr. Brendan Coogan - and Ms Emma Jane Joyce from the ISIF. There may be some others whom I have left out, but I thank them all for their work on this matter. From Trócaire, I thank Ms Cliona Sharkey, Ms Niamh Garvey and Ms Selina Donnelly. From the Global Legal Action Network, GLAN, I thank Mr. Gerry Liston. All of these people have done Trojan work in getting this Bill ready for Committee Stage.

Before I forget, I will thank my PA as well for her important work.