Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

I will address the issue of the midlands, which has two or three prongs, and leave the question on methane to my colleagues. The issue of the current workers in fossil fuel plants is one matter and there is also the broader community development aspect. In regard to the issue of the workers, which Ms Sharkey and I were just discussing, one must ask them their view rather than presume to know what they want. I agree with Mr. Stanley-Smith that there is a lot of work available in retrofitting but one must engage with the workers rather than presume to know what they may want to do if their employment ceases in three or four years time.

Although it is not quite the same situation, an abrupt decision - at least from the point of view of the workers - was made to close the Littleton briquette factory last year. Coincidentally, a conference on just transition involving the Minister, the head of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and others took place a few days after the announcement and facilitated an engagement between the Minister, the ICTU and local unions. That led to a relatively productive and successful process, firstly between the company and the unions. State agencies became involved and were able to offer the workers training opportunities and assistance to transition to other jobs. That took place fewer than 18 months ago.

We must not take too long to reduce the usage of peat but we will have sufficient time if we start now. I earlier drew an analogy involving US companies. In the case of the Littleton briquette factory, it was somewhat easier to get worker engagement as someone else fired the starting gun, that is, a nasty, faceless chief executive in the US decided those jobs were going and then we all rallied around. In the case of peat, someone here must fire the starting gun and state that this is going to happen, which is why no one is doing it. Everyone is shying away from it.

The process must be somewhat openended. We do not know exactly what the outcome will be in terms of the training opportunities, etc., but we should first have round-table talks involving the just transition commission, the company, unions, State agencies and local stakeholders such as Irish Rural Link and others because the broader question is it is not about those particular workers and plants or factories but, rather, the broader community development support that is needed to allow the community to envisage what a fossil-free future looks like. That is what climate dialogue is about, in a way, and it has a very specific usefulness and resonance in a place such as the midlands in determining what our communities will look like in five or ten years if we no longer depend on fossil fuel jobs or fossil fuels to heat our homes, etc.

I mentioned Templederry earlier. It is worth noting that that did not start with the idea of doing something about renewable energy. It started as a community development project with an open-ended discussion about what can be done in the community to provide jobs and futures for families. After a process of a number of years, they came up with the idea of a community-owned wind farm. In the video my colleague made, John Fogarty, the chairman, stands in front of it and says that it is his child's college fund.

We need to engage with the workers and the communities and their representatives and work with them and support them to forge the future that they want and we all need.