Ms Sumaya Mohammed:

Hi. I am 12 years old and a first year student in Cork Educate Together secondary school.

I am not in any way capable of representing more than 15,000 students in the Republic of Ireland and I am not a professional speaker. I am not here to bore my listeners with my life story. The politicians present grew up worrying about what jobs they would get, how they would do in exams and who they would fall in love with. We grow up worrying about the same things, but on top of that, we have the worry about how long we have left to live. We, as students here, should be enjoying life, having carefree thoughts and not worrying about the future of the world. Yet we are here telling politicians how to do their job.

The root of the problem is greed and money being allowed to rule. We know that Earth has already warmed by 1.1°C since the industrial revolution. Politicians continue to look at us and say that they are proud of us, but the moment they walk out of this room, the fact that they do not do anything makes us wonder if they are thinking of their image more than they are thinking of us. To the Dáil and all of the politicians, we say we are beyond furious. We should not have to be doing this and giving up one of our basic human rights, education, in order to clean up the politicians' mess. It should not come down to just having 11 years to drastically change what is happening to the earth. Politicians give us compliments on how amazing it is that schoolchildren are standing up for their futures and said that they were inspired and enthused. Their compliments are worthless to us without actions. We signed up to the Paris Agreement, which by the looks of it, everyone has forgotten.

We are Europe's laggards and it should not be that way. Those politicians who have children love them more than anything else. Like Greta Thunberg said, these politicians are stealing their futures right in front of their very eyes. They are stealing my future and have absolutely no right to do that. I am sorry if this gives offence to any of the politicians present here in any way but they must face the reality. They are not realising that their greed and delay is harming our very existence or that if we fail there is no "undo" button. If we are capable of changing the climate, then we are definitely capable of fixing this mess. The IPCC's latest science report in October 2018 said that the next ten years will be the most important years in history. I hope the politicians make that count.