Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Again, if Deputy Naughten looks at section 6D he will see the Minister or the Government are not empowered to just go and change the targets as they see fit. It is really only within very specific circumstances that it can happen. The situation we are in now is that Deputies are examining this legislation and asking are those reasonable situations where they would want the target to be changed or where they would want to allow the Government or the Minister to change the target. If there are any sections in section 6D that Deputies think are unreasonable, or they think there are more which should be added, or if it should be more or less limited, then this is their chance to say it. What we are not going to do is transfer the responsibility away from the Minister onto the Houses and say that now the Houses are accountable to themselves for what the carbon budgets are.