Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To clarify, what the programme for Government plans is that the just transition commissioner will be established as a statutory office with appropriate staffing and resources and that a just transition plan to frame the work of the permanent commission for just transition will be put in place. This is not a non-statutory promise of the sort Deputy Whitmore describes, it is an institutional arrangement that will be at the heart of planning. I can understand Deputy Naughten saying that phrases such as "have regard to" would appear to offer Ministers the potential to disregard those were they not of a mood but that is clearly not the case when one puts into permanent statutory form a just transition commissioner, when one has a plan that sets it out and when one complements that with this Bill. There is undoubtedly an obligation on any Minister that occupies the current Minister's position, to take a view of the same kind that we must endeavour, insofar as is practicable. That is the highest bar that one ever sees in legislation, one never sees deliver because obviously there are restraints which Ministers must apply to so that they do everything that they could within their power. That is what "insofar as practicable" means in legislative terms. The combination of this Bill and the other Bill that is coming up the tracks provides the belt and braces that Deputies are looking for here. One cannot put everything into this Bill. Deputies have to acknowledge that there is a second Bill that will be dealing in a much more comprehensive way with the institutions and there will be a subsequent just transition plan that will create a broader framework. Against that background, the Minister's approach is very reasonable.