Mr. Connor McGookin:

I am an academic so I like talking. The first point made was about carbon tax and we looked at that and what it would mean to raise the weekly allowance in order to offset the extra €10.

It was something like €4 in the winter and €2 in the summer. We will revert to the committee as we have some figures on that. It would not hit the people in fuel poverty. Much of what comes from our research must account for fuel poverty.

Climate change is a cross-cutting matter and there were questions as to how to overcome the problems. There are significant benefits to dealing with climate change, particularly in the rural sector, and I hope dealing with climate change would address many of the problems of rural degradation and help to revive many rural areas. It would help farmers through diversification of income by generating electricity, growing other crops or being paid for the carbon captured in their forests. Reforestation would be a major part of achieving carbon neutrality, along with restoring wetlands.

Public participation networks were a recommendation in the report from the Joint Committee on Climate Action, which is why I left them out of my bullet points. I certainly agree that we need such town hall meetings and there is an attempt to achieve this with the national dialogue on climate change. It is important to capacity building in communities to have access to impartial experts who can point to the facts and challenges being faced. It is about open discussion. My research in the Dingle peninsula relates to this if the members are interested.

Somebody mentioned going through the local authority and we thought that if we could follow the example of the UK and Wicklow in declaring a climate emergency, local authorities should have it as a top priority to have a climate change officer who would be able to advise homeowners or community groups. It is an important element in building capacity, which has been mentioned quite often. There was mention of the middle class accessing grants. It is a major problem. I know in Australia, poorer people were basically subsidising richer people getting solar panels put on their homes. We must be careful to avoid such things.