Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to cover three areas and get some feedback from Professor FitzGerald. If he does not have the details with him now, a written response will be fine.

I read the Bill again last night and focused on the section on the role of local authorities. It reminded me of how Cork County Council published a climate action plan in 2019 when I was a member of it. That focused on adaptation measures, though, with very little in the way of mitigation. Should the Bill place greater obligations on local authorities in terms of how they achieve their adaptation and mitigation measures? Since local authorities are major landowners or have a remit over large areas of land, could they be obligated to implement more nature-based solutions? Given that they also run car parks, what about electric vehicle recharging stations? Could there be stronger obligations? The Bill requires authorities to produce climate action plans, including mitigation measures. While this might address the matter, it has not been the experience to date.

Will Professor FitzGerald flesh out another point? He felt that the 25 elements that the Government should have regard to were too many. Will he elaborate? Actually, I am not sure if he said there were too many. Is he suggesting that the number should be reduced or more focused? Perhaps I misinterpreted him.

Will Professor FitzGerald elaborate on the matter of split budgets? He mentioned that he had been consulting the agricultural sector during his time off. He stated that the EU recommendation was for a split budget in terms of carbon versus biogenic methane.