Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a point. Last week, the Secretary General of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment stated that he was about to present a consultation paper on how we will meet the new national energy and climate action plan to the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, which would be published and a copy of which would be sent to the committee. The Minister has not received the paper and neither has the committee. Similarly, we asked in advance of this meeting that the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport provide a list of the new projects or initiatives it is considering. However, the opening statement of Mr. Doyle provided to the committee in advance contains a litany of measures from the national mitigation plan, which is not working, as the Minister admitted. The public service must recognise that it needs to provide a service to the committee by being absolutely frank and providing such modelling detail in order that we know what are the options. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service has done very good work in presenting some of the analysis but it cannot do so effectively without knowing what the Departments are thinking. Unfortunately, that has been our experience so far and the practice must stop.