Ms Cliona Sharkey:

Yes. My apologies for coming back in on this but we have been watching and engaging in the national dialogue from the outset. The participatory development is something we believe in. It is the approach we take in all of the countries where we work supporting people to engage in local decision making and planning.

In terms of climate change, for lots of reasons talking to people is incredibly important. It gives them an opportunity to engage and shape decisions, especially if it is to be owned by people and to produce outcomes and actions that are fair and equitable. What was clear from the Citizens' Assembly's first recommendation which the Deputy mentioned was the sense of frustration at the lack of action to date and the call for political leadership. We think there needs to be an increase in public participation and an expansion and continuation of that dialogue but this needs to be met with a clear, consistent commitment from the Oireachtas around the role it will play. In terms of concrete outcomes of this committee, we would like to see the report exemplify a clear message and the start of the clear persistent public communication, explicitly cross-party, that the Oireachtas is resolutely committed to ensuring we meet our targets going forward, and that each time the plans and budgets come up the debate will be had about the how and the what in this regard. There must be a cross-party determined resolute commitment to ensuring we meet our targets and this must be a persistent public communications exercise. This is needed if we are to win the hearts and minds and to ensure that everyone realises that this is the overwhelming public interest to enable us to pursue all of our social goals.