Dr. Mark Cassidy:

I thank the Deputy for her questions, the response to which I will break down into a couple of different elements. Deputy Farrell mentioned that a new climate change unit has been set up at the ECB. I can confirm that we have done the same within the Central Bank in Dublin. That reflects the importance of climate change, including for central banks; this is not just something that we are looking out at in the rest of the economy. Climate change has a significant impact on the mandate of central banks, including through potential risks or impacts on price stability through its effects on the real economy, as well as its potential effects on financial stability, perhaps through the exposure of banks or insurance companies. We are directly interested and are taking our responsibilities in that regard very seriously. There is also the extent to which the central banking community in the euro system should be commenting on more general economic issues around central banking or taking that into consideration in our monetary policy decisions. I am sorry to be giving a similar answer to the previous one but this is under active consideration in the current ECB strategy review. What I can say is that the mandate of the ECB is very clear, namely that the primary concern is price stability. The secondary objective, without prejudice to price stability, is to take action to support the general economic policies of the EU which would include climate change. There is an indirect opportunity there, as long as it does not conflict with the primary objective of price stability which remains paramount.

In terms of the politics, I will not comment on the political dimension apart from agreeing with the fundamental importance of capital expenditure to mitigate risks relating to climate change. This is very clearly present in both our domestic national development plan, much of which relates to climate activities and also in the plans for the EU recovery and resilience facility, over one third of which must involve climate change measures. I hope that answers the Deputy's questions.