John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank ICTU for the presentation. What was always going to be one of weaknesses of the Citizens' Assembly is dealing with the politics of climate change. It very clearly stated what it stated, and it is up to this committee to deal with the reality on the ground. The ICTU witnesses are the first witnesses to have come before the committee to outline exactly what that involves and I thank Mr. Noone, in particular, for outlining what the reality is for people, many of whom may have spent a lifetime working for a company with a particular skillset. Because of the age cohort of some of them, they simply will not work again after this. As he said, the mean age is 56, so the average remaining working life for that group in the company is 12 years. I am 54 and I hope the next 12 years are among the most productive in my life.

I want to focus on one word in the opening statement - "impact". It is a small word and easy to overlook.

I do not like the approach which states that people can upskill or train. It is not as easy as that. The word "impact" captures the necessity of that. Someone could have been working for a company for 30 years and it is all he or she knows, which is what Senator Devine was talking about. In the United States, people relied utterly on specific industries and, almost overnight, they disappeared, hence the name "rust belt". It is not a criticism and it does not assign a label to a particular part of this country. It borrows from the experiences of another country where communities were left devastated. That point has to be made. It is too easy for us to say that people can upskill and do this or that. I am focusing on the word "impact" and on the human element of what people are facing . That involves a range of things. While it can be a significant opportunity for some, it can be frightening for others. That is why I welcome our guests' contributions. The idea that they could easily transition to other jobs gives rise to fear and is intimidating for people. This was my introduction to this transition forum idea and I thank the witnesses for bringing it to us. Preparation has to be done. People have multiple needs aside from income and work. There is an issue with confidence. Some people do not have the confidence and have to be mentored to move from a phase of employment life into another, which is especially challenging. That is not lost on me but I do not want to labour the point.

Mr. Healy's contribution was particularly thought-provoking in the context of the opportunities that may lie ahead. ICTU has to persuade people. Some members of the committee visited Tipperary last week. As the clerk to the committee stated , we saw many of the things we had been talking about here in theory. We were grounded by a number of the things we saw happening with the Tipperary Energy Agency. We also heard about communities. What Mr. Noone said about wind energy is interesting, namely, that there has been a loss of appetite for it and that it is controversial. One group we met indicated that a contributory reason for this is that communities were promised a direct benefit from wind energy. They were promised there would be local community fora and buy-in, and that there would be a community dividend when wind energy came to their town. That has not transpired. Corporate bodies have received the dividends. We need to go back and look at wind energy. If it is true that solar panels could be laid across the bog, with all the economic and employment benefits that would derive from doing so, that simply cannot happen without the community having ownership of it. The latter could be ownership in having some energy dividend personally or being involved in the construction. That involves training, etc. We cannot have a situation where a multinational or big corporate company comes in, takes ownership of the bog and does what it wants. Solar or other energy alternatives must come from the community. If there is one lesson we learned from last week, it is that communities lost interest in wind energy because promises about things from which they would have benefited directly were never followed through on. I ask our guests to provide feedback on that.

Reference was made to the ESB and coal. Last week, someone mentioned the book Who Moved My Cheese?during our visit to Tipperary. The only criticism I have of Mr. Noone is that the timeline has been brought from 2030 to 2025. I am not a Minister. I am talking as a layman and citizen. That could be brought back to 2020. Mr. Noone must have seen this coming. Other industries must have seen it coming. They must act as persuaders and informers, even sitting down with companies and saying it is coming even if companies say it is not, and not to be surprised when it happens. One can see from David Attenborough's contribution in Poland during the week that it is becoming more urgent. We have been appallingly poor at addressing this climate change and timelines will probably have to be pulled back in.