Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is not really leading from the front when it says it will look at it year-on-year and give the public no indication of what the implications will be over the next to ten to 12 years. That is the point the ESRI made. Professor FitzGerald also made the pertinent point that it is regressive in its present format and that needs to be addressed in putting forward a policy or giving a pathway for its increase over the coming years.

Regarding the Department, I agree with Deputy Lisa Chambers that it is a lot of motherhood and apple pie. I come from County Offaly which is Bord na Móna and ESB country. In the 1930s and 1940s the Government of the day was advised to provide a mechanism by which jobs could be created in the region. It was quite successful, thank God, and it provided up to 8,000 jobs at its peak in the 1980s. However, at present it is accelerating its decarbonisation programme. Its workforce has reduced to fewer than 1,000. The public buys into it, strangely enough and thankfully for everybody's sake. The workforce also buys into it. The local authority has set up a transition forum with all relevant stakeholders to ensure the workforce is adequately trained and upskilled to provide alternatives. However, we have not seen the same input, the same effort or the same cohesive and specific targeting of that region by Government. For example, it did not even apply to the last Commission to include the peatlands regions in the EU coalmine transition fund. That failure was recognised by me and another councillor when we went out there last year. We now need to wait for a new Commission to be put in place for the Government to bring forward its application and ensure something is done in the future.

The public is interested and committed to buying into this. However, they need to see the same commitment and buy-in from Government. If they are making a commitment they need to know what they are getting in return. The contents of the plan are so woolly and lacking in specifics that they cannot see what is in it.

Coming back to the remit of the committee and to my responsibility, I hope the Chairman will exclude the answers given to date in calculating those five minutes.