Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is very wise counsel. There is no doubt but that we will fail if we do not get communities to engage. Much of this is about people changing the way they travel, work and heat and insulate their homes and the choices they make in all kinds of lifestyle areas. To make this effective, one must be aware of the constraints with which people are living their lives. One cannot come in from Mars with some view of the perfect way to live, so this will be challenging. Equally, one cannot pay for the adjustment. The sorts of changes that will have to be made are beyond the State's capacity to fund. To take as an example the housing sector, I think €50 billion would be needed if we were to upgrade our housing to the level stated. The national development plan is making €4 billion in total available, I think. There are many individual homes and communities, and we are going to have to find ways other than subsidies to encourage people to make this happen. It cannot just be by fiat; we must bring people with us. The urgency is the other side of it. We do not have the time to say this will be done over an extended period during which one will hardly notice the difference. It must be done rapidly. This is why we have some of the best minds in politics together in this room to try to come up with ways in which we will do this. It is not easy and I do not pretend it is, but I go back to what I said at the beginning. The window for doing anything about this is closing very rapidly, so we do not have the time to hang back. As the Prime Minister of Fiji said, we are all in the same canoe. If we puncture the canoe, we all go down together. We would not avoid the impact of the kind of disruption that would happen globally if we failed to respond to this. We must therefore act with conviction and belief in the importance of this while also recognising communities' role in buying into it. That is the challenge. All suggestions will be gratefully received. I cannot do this on my own. Collectively, the body politic must square up to this.