Ms Laura Burke:

The Deputy is looking for a load of written reports. To be clear, we cannot deliver everything. It comes back to the role of the EPA. I am now exchanging my Climate Change Advisory Council hat for an EPA hat. I agree with the Deputy about targets for 2050. We have a national policy position and we need to work backwards from that. If we want an 80% reduction in electricity, we need to consider what needs to be done to achieve that. Based on current projections relating to emissions, the EPA has identified that a reduction of about 800,000 tonnes per year would be needed if we are to achieve the desired levels by 2050. I will not call it a target because it is something the EPA is seeking to do.

There are many ideas and plans as to how to achieve this. There is a national mitigation plan that contains many ideas for what needs to be done and what needs to be prioritised. There are also numerous joint Oireachtas committee reports already in existence, including a very recent one on agriculture that identified 35 different actions. That is worthwhile considering. There is a risk that there are many different plans. There is a White Paper on energy which examines how our energy system should be decarbonised. There are many different plans and papers there. It is a question of pulling all the disparate plans together in order that there is one national approach, and that should be the aspiration for the national energy and climate plan.

There is also a need for clarity. Different sectors have a role and a responsibility in identifying what they are going to do about mitigation and adaptation. This comes back to not abdicating responsibility and seeking to place it on somebody else. The sectors in question are responsible for looking at their activities between now and 2020, 2030 or 2050 and, as part of their role, identifying what they are going to do to mitigate their impact on climate.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine does a substantial amount of work in afforestation - different types of forestry and considerations regarding carbon abatement and storage. I would be looking to the Department to state which type of forestry is required where. Over the past ten years, the EPA has committed €26 million in State funding to conducting research, with the money coming from either the Exchequer or, at times, the environment fund. That can be research on things like land use and there are reports looking at opportunities and mitigation. There is research that can support this committee but I am conscious that there is only so much the members can take.

The EPA makes predictions and its projections work. There is a short summary report on the website which - in the context of every sector - indicates what the EPA thinks the issues will be as far as 2035 and where the growth is. It is not modelling. There is a multi-departmental technical group - the technical research and modelling group, TRAM - which is looking at modelling and making predictions for the future of the State. It will be interesting to hear more from that group on what it is doing.