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

I thank Deputy Eamon Ryan and the committee for the work that they have done. It is right, as we have done in this case, to have the Citizens' Assembly followed by the Oireachtas committee and then a Government plan. That approach has helped us to undertake significant change in other spheres of Government. I agree with the Deputy when he says that our Department will need to considerably reorganise and expand its capability to take on this responsibility. We are assessing the types of expertise we need ourselves and how we need to develop that. Every part of Government must recognise that this is their up close and personal responsibility, not just the responsibility of a Minister who happens to have "climate action" in his or her title.

Everyone must understand that there is up close and personal responsibility for them, and it is not just the responsibility of a Minister who happens to have "climate action" in his or her title. Unless we get that change, we will not deliver this. The Deputy is right to signal T.K. Whitaker as being a light-bulb moment but interestingly there was not a massive institutional change that he instituted. It was about a sense of conversion, confidence and self-belief, and about starting to plan to be ambitious, to set targets and seek to reach them. That first paper that he produced and the first economic plan that followed it were not grandiose documents. If we go back and look at them now, we will see how simple they were in many ways. At the time, they were a light shining where none had been shining for many years. This is something similar. We must not think that we can push it over there and that is the job done. I think the committee's report reflects that. The governance is not about me or my successor reporting. What is envisaged is for the committee to hold every Minister to account for his or her area of responsibility. I hope our plan will reflect that. Notwithstanding that, I accept that we need to beef up our capability. I was involved in the Action Plan for Jobs process. One of the things we did early in that process was bring the capability of Forfás into the Department, so we had capability to drive and initiate change and interact with wider parts of Government. It will be the same here. We need to develop that sort of capability.