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

I agree with Deputy Bríd Smith that it is not ideal that this is the first item up. It almost seems inevitable that the issue of carbon taxation dominates. Certainly it is the first question that is always asked and then one does not get onto the wider work. It is important that we do so. I support the amendment because I want to keep that certainty in the ten-year period in order that we can start concentrating on the matters on which we really need to concentrate and on the big ticket items we need to get right. The committee has done really good work on setting a higher renewables target of 70%. The Government has responded to this and it was not going to do that at all. What we have said about needing a national land use plan is significant and important in terms of helping with the revised Common Agricultural Policy and a completely different future for Irish forestry and farming.

We must consider the scale of the change we need to make. We are all in favour of retrofit but we should recognise that the national development plan, which will have to change, states that by 2021 we will be deep retrofitting 45,000 houses to a B rating or higher. Last year we did 220. How will we go from 220 to 45,000 in two years? We do not have the workers or the financing mechanism set up. There are so many things we must do and it requires the political system. As we will not put the blame or guilt on the individual, it is up to us in the political system to work together collectively to make this transition. Irish people will be, can be and want to be good at it.

Carbon tax will not be the key measure but it will help. We heard research from UCD environmental policy masters students who are reviewing the literature that it will depend on what level it is set at but it could achieve 5%, 10% or 15% of the job. The analysis we got from the ESRI is that if we use the fee and dividend model, it would give an emissions reduction of approximately 17% by 2030. This is not exact but they are our best independent scientific experts who have applied their best independent thinking to come up with this figure. It could be lower or higher but it is not insignificant. It would help a country facing fines of €600 million or €700 million a year. The Irish public would really find us guilty if instead of going into social welfare, housing, health and education, money was going out of the country because we failed to take the type of action we need to take.

Deputy Dooley made a good point yesterday but he was reiterating the point we have all been making throughout the process, which is that if we are going to do anything on carbon tax, we have to make sure we do everything we can to protect those on lower incomes. There are different views as to how we could and should to that. My understanding is we have all pretty much agreed that we need to spend the next four or five months working out with the Government the best way of doing this. We need to do this because by the end of this year, we as a country need to go to the European Union and agree a plan that is real and justiciable, in the sense the European Union will hold us to account on it.

The wording here is "acceptable", in that the word "accepts" is not as strong as the word "agree" that we had earlier but it accepts the expert advice. It accepts what we heard from the Climate Change Advisory Council, which is our best independent adviser on the issue, on what we need to do. We are saying we will do it gradually. We will need to do a whole body of other work after that. I will be honest and say we will not get it all done in the next six months and we will probably not even get it done in six years. This will be a two or three-decade project of massive ambition, transformation and transition for our country that, first and foremost, has to be a just transition.

I would love to have a debate such as the one we are having on that just transition, forestry and transport. My God, we need to talk about transport. We are still heading completely in the wrong direction. Our entire transport plan has to change. A carbon tax will not do this; it will require political decisions of the Government to make it happen. However, we can start concentrating on it when we get over this issue that is dominating. It is the only issue ever discussed. Agreeing the amendment will not provide certainty because we are not agreeing the budget here but it will give a political signal and allow us to concentrate on what we need to concentrate on, which is how we protect those on lower incomes, transform our transport system, tap into the energy potential we have as a country and retrofit our homes. These will not be easy but they are doable. However, they will not be doable if we just break down on this issue at the very start.

I agree with Deputy Bríd Smith that it should not have been given such prominence. It should not be first up. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the politics and how it is played out. We should not divide on it. Even if we divide in a vote we should not lose what has been good on this committee, which is the collective approach.