Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 June 2021

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The point I was making is that the Executive is responsible for operational actions. I do not dispute that point with the Minister of State at all. Setting an overall budget on a five-yearly basis in respect of our overall carbon emissions and setting sectoral targets, however, are not operational actions and cannot be considered as such. Such matters should be ratified and approved by Dáil Éireann. Under no circumstances should a gun be placed to the heads of the Members of Dáil Éireann to the effect that if they do not ratify these proposals, the power will then be handed over directly to the Minister of day to set whatever targets he or she wishes. If the initial proposals are rejected by the Dáil, it should still be necessary for any new proposals to come back to and be approved by the House. This is the democratically elected Parliament of the country and there is no getting away from that fact.

The Minister of State's defence is to say it would be possible to go to court and force the Government to do something. However, the Judiciary and the Legislature are two very separate and distinct arms of constitutional authority in Ireland. Therefore, for the Government and the Minister of State to be saying that if people are not happy with this situation they should toddle off to the steps of the Four Courts is not good enough. The people who are accountable in this regard are the 160 Teachtaí Dála elected in all the constituencies in the country. The Government should be able to justify and explain why it is taking an approach and that approach should have to be approved by the majority of the elected Members of Parliament.

We have said all along that we can only achieve our targets for 2030 or 2050 by bringing people along with us on the road. Some people pay lip service to this point, but I firmly believe in it. To legislate the Dáil out of existence in respect of approving or rejecting the overall budgets and sectoral targets will undermine that principle. This is one principle I am not prepared to bend on. I believe that a fundamental aspect of this legislation should be that the Dáil is the body that approves the five-year budget. During the last Dáil, colleagues of the Minister of State made the argument that the planning framework and national development plan, NDP, should be approved by the Dáil and that these matters should not just be left to the Executive. The objectives of the planning framework and the NDP must at least come before the Dáil annually and go through the budget process in the form of the vote on the budget itself and then consideration of the Estimates for each Government Department.

These sectoral targets, however, are not going to be ratified by the parliamentary committees and will not be presented to the Dáil for ratification in any form whatsoever. The only function and role we will have as parliamentarians will be to accept a proposal once every five years or hand the power back to the Minister concerned. I do not believe that is good enough. It is wrong, bad for democracy and bad for our overall aim of bringing people along with us on this climate journey.

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