Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My concern is that one can buy one's way out of reducing carbon. The picture has become overly complicated. We need to decarbonise and there are many initiatives for so doing. I have concerns based on our most recent meetings with the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Central Statistics Office regarding the way the system is divided and Ireland's place in it. When one breaks it down, the emissions trading system is heavily weighted. Some 72% of Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions are categorised as non-ETS emissions. A third of that 72% is agriculture based. Ireland seems to be overly negatively affected by the European method of calculating or quantifying emissions because of our dependency on agricultural and the amount of food we export. Some 90% of agricultural product is exported. What are the witnesses' views in that regard? Is there an uneven playing field? Big industry has significant power in this area. The two ESRI representatives who appeared before the committee stated that once one's profit margin is sufficient to buy one's way out, one can pollute as much as one wishes. I do not need to explain this to the witnesses. If one's margin is big enough, one can pay the carbon bill. That goes completely against the aim of reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and keeping as much of it in the ground as possible. Has Ireland been given a raw deal in this regard?