Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Chair. I am grateful to you for your forbearance in allowing me to speak to the amendment. My colleague, Deputy Duncan Smith, received correspondence from you on 2 June where you expressed regret at the fact that amendment No. 97 is not relevant to the provisions of the Bill, could impose a charge on the revenue and must be ruled out of order in accordance with Standing Orders 187(1) and 212(3). We put forward this amendment on the basis that we wished to support the Government's attempts to ensure there is a meaningful piece of legislation on climate action and low carbon development. I merely wish, from a procedural point of view, to understand the logic of disallowing the amendment, which seeks a sectoral adaptation plan in respect of afforestation and targets therein, and similarly in respect of the remediation of bogs without impinging whatsoever on individuals' turbary rights, in the first instance. I would hope that the Chairman or perhaps the Minister of State could help my understanding of the logic behind the decision to disallow the amendment in the first place. That is merely what I wish to ascertain.

Second, and depending on the answer to that, I do not see how a sectoral adaptation plan in relation to afforestation which I would consider to be germane to the issue of climate action could be injurious to a Bill of this nature unless, of course, it is a matter of interpreting the Minister of State's position thus far, which is that "not ... everything ... needs to be stuffed into this Bill". I would have thought that afforestation targets are absolutely germane to this legislation. While we acknowledge the role of the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, in relation to her current afforestation travails, notwithstanding the challenges in relation to licensing, the Labour Party strongly feels there is an issue here that is absolutely germane to the issue of climate action. I wish to seek a justification for ruling that amendment out of order. Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to intercede. I appreciate it.