Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome members and the viewers watching our proceedings on Oireachtas TV to the first public session of our newly former Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action. We have received apologies from Deputies Deering, Heydon, Bríd Smith and Neville and Senators Paul Daly and Grace O'Sullivan.

Before I introduce our witnesses, at the request of the broadcasting and recording services, I will ask members and visitors in the Public Gallery to turn off their mobile phones or put them on flight mode, as they will interfere with the recording system.

I thank Mr. Mauro Petriccione, director general of the Directorate General for Climate Action, or DG CLIMA, and his official, Dr. Quentin Dupriez, policy officer, for attending. I also welcome Mr. Gerry Kiely, head of the European Commission representation in Ireland. On behalf of our Parliament, I wish everyone a warm welcome to Ireland. We are proud members of the European Union and welcome the recent decision by EU leaders to put action on climate change at the top of the Union's agenda for the next five years. While past performance on climate action across our political parties has not been strong, we are working hard to change that. Climate change has arguably never been higher on the political agenda in Ireland than it is today. Just a few weeks ago, Ireland became the second country in the world to declare a biodiversity and climate emergency, sending a strong message that the Oireachtas is taking these interlinked global challenges seriously. However, it is vital that we go further than a political declaration. We need decisive action.

A recently published report by this committee sets out more than 40 priority recommendations for the Government and State agencies. It addresses actions across all relevant sectors and proposes a new governance framework for climate policy that will pave the way for more transformational changes in individual sectors. The Government is now poised to set out its climate action roadmap, with the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton's all-of-Government plan due to come before us in the coming weeks. It will build on our report and set out practical actions to support Ireland in playing its part in addressing the global challenge of climate change fairly. The committee will be responsible for scrutinising that all-of-Government plan and we will hold Ministers and public officials to account for its delivery.

Until the end of this year, we will continue our work examining climate policy in Ireland and driving actions that contribute to Ireland's national energy and climate plan, which is due to go to the European Commission in December. We hope to have an extension of our mandate to become a permanent committee so that we would hold the Government to account on an ongoing basis. I would like to see our political parties continue to work together, which we have done well until now, on charting a course to stronger action on climate change in Ireland. With continued cross-party support and much work across the Government and all sections of our economy and society, we can get Ireland back on track and keep us there to meet our international climate change obligations. We look forward to hearing from the witnesses regarding the strategy for Europe to become the world's first major economy to go climate neutral by 2050.

I invite Mr. Petriccione to make his opening address, which we will be happy to hear.