Mr. Séamus Walsh:

I refer to the article on thejournal.ie to which the Deputy drew attention. The World Meteorological Organization, WMO, guidance regarding attribution of weather events says that if we are asked a question like whether climate change caused a particular event, there is no simple "Yes" or "No" answer. The WMO says that is a poorly phrased question. If we try to tell a journalist that he or she has essentially asked the wrong question, we get nowhere, so we do not say "Yes" or "No". We place an event in the context of a warming planet and an increase in extremes. That is how we do it. If one is interviewed by a journalist and one cannot say "Yes" or "No", and the journalist chooses to write a headline saying that Met Éireann says "No", that is the headline. We do not write the headlines.