Mr. Séamus Walsh:

On the question on attribution, the Deputy asked about events in recent years. While a specific attribution study has not been done on an event, we can fall back on the body of work that is being carried out globally on event attribution. It shows that the likelihood of many events, particularly high-temperature ones, has been increased because of human-induced activity in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. According to that body of evidence, when extreme events occur, human fingerprints are on them.

Regarding some of the extreme weather events we have had, for example, Storm Desmond in the winter of 2015-16 and the heatwave last summer, scientific attribution studies show that the likelihood of such events has increased.

If there is a specific event, we can fall back on the global body of work on extreme weather events and say that these are part of a trend of increasing severe weather events because of climate change in a global context.