Mr. Brian Carroll:

I will deal with each of those questions in turn. The first question the Deputy asked was on consultation. The importance of consulting and bringing people with us is fully recognised. The legislation provides that the Minister may consult as appropriate in bringing forward plans and strategies and the intention is to do so. With particular regard to local authorities, which are probably the structures closest to local communities, section 12(5) of the Bill provides that local authorities will need to publish draft local authority climate action plans, publish a notice on the Internet and invite members of the public and any interested parties to make submissions in writing with regard to the proposed plan. That puts a very specific onus on local authorities to consult at the local level.

More generally, there are plans for a wider climate dialogue. Three pillars to this were identified. One related to the capacity of government, the Civil Service and the public service to communicate consistent messages to the public. The second related to periodically convening all key stakeholders at a national level to inform the making of policy. The third and probably most important pillar related to local engagement geared towards activation, that is to say, engaging with people at a local level. As a structure, the local authorities will obviously have a key role in that.

The Deputy's second question was on progress on the size of the decarbonisation ranges. That work will progress over the coming period in the context of the preparation of the carbon budgets and the next iteration of the climate action plan. I fully accept the Deputy's point that if the ranges are too broad, they may facilitate lesser ambition and if they are too narrow, they may be overly prescriptive. That is something through which we will have to work. Ranges will have to be managed so that the sum of the sectoral efforts will allow us to reach the target required to remain within the carbon ceiling for the particular budgetary period.

With regard to the banking and borrowing provisions, which was the third issue the Deputy raised, we followed the approach taken in the UK. They allow for the amount by which a sector came in under a ceiling in a given budgetary period to be carried forward to the next period. This was considered a prudent approach which could incentivise early action. A much more conservative approach was taken with regard to borrowing. If a sector exceeds its carbon ceiling in a given budgetary period, the amount it can bring forward or borrow from a future budgetary period to compensate is limited to 1% of the budget for the period from which it is borrowed. That was the approach taken in that regard.

The last issue the Deputy raised was the issue of compliance mechanisms where budgetary targets are missed. Primary accountability under the Bill is to the Oireachtas, whose role is to make reports and recommendations. The Minister is also required to respond and to take corrective action.

In addition, at an EU level, if we exceed our EU carbon ceilings or fail to hit our targets again, we will be exposed to purchasing compliance. Administrative arrangements could be made to distribute that purchasing cost across the relevant sectors that are not hitting their targets.

The Deputy mentioned cross-Government oversight and the delivery board. The intention is that the delivery board will continue to be co-chaired by the Secretaries General of the Departments of the Taoiseach and Environment, Climate and Communications, and the quarterly reporting will continue against the actions set out in the climate action plan.