Mr. Noel Regan:

Fundamentally, both the EU package and Ireland's climate Act are based on the same 2050 target of having a climate neutral or net zero economy. The final goal is the same for both. Before I get into the detail, our emissions profile differs considerably from the EU average for two key reasons. We have a lower amount of heavy industry than is typical and our agricultural emissions are higher than the average of other member states.

Looking at how they compare, 2030 is a key staging point for both. The EU target is at least a 55% reduction compared with 1990 levels. The climate Act states that there should be a 51% reduction from 2018 emissions. The Deputy has correctly pointed out that the bases are different and, therefore, a comparison is difficult. It is important to state that the emissions target for the ETS for large industry and electricity is an EU-wide target, so the 61% is not for member states but for the EU. All that said, this depends on what assumptions are applied. It is safe to assume that the climate action policy will be as ambitious in 2030 as the EU package. Certain assumptions could be changed but that is safe to say at a high level.

On the Deputy's question about the sectors and how we track them, it is important to state that both our inventory for the national system and the EU system will be based on the IPCC guidelines. The EPA manages our inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and follows the international guidelines. That can be broken down into considerable detail. Depending on the Government's decision on sectoral ceilings, granular information is available from the EPA to satisfy both the national system and the EU accounting system, which essentially follow the same methodology from the bottom up.