Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I must have affected Deputy Boyd Barrett because he seems to have wandered off the script. I was listening to him while dining at the same time. First, I thank the Chair. I also thank our witnesses for their presentation. I listened to as much of it as I could. I was trying to do two things at the same time.

There are two things that come to mind. I had agreed all day almost with Deputy Boyd Barrett. I worry about my ideological trends when that happens. However, he wandered off anyway so I am glad to say I am back on track again now. The Deputy is suggesting one thing that I strongly disagree with, namely, dividing society. In the battle that is ahead, we cannot afford to divide society between rich and poor and urban and rural. We have to include everybody. Climate change affects everybody. If we all stay together, we will succeed.

On carbon tax, it is hard to say to people that it is in their own interests and that they should swallow their medicine and it will be okay. Carbon tax is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end, and we have to realise that. However, we need to have alternatives in the intervening period. We have just spoken about that. We cannot afford to say to people that this is it for the good of society and for the good of humanity. We need to be able to show them graphically that we are on their side on this and that we are aware of the difficulties that this creates for some people. The Government is trying to do that. It is trying to address those issues through the medium of social welfare and other measures. That is being done. Whether it will be done sufficiently to meet the needs of the people remains to be seen. I referred to this at another committee just a short while ago. There is a necessity to have a plan B, should there be a sharp deterioration in weather conditions, for example, this coming winter or in the spring. We should have some way of showing the people how we can get to where we need to go, for example, in the context of keeping them in some degree of comfort and ensuring that they have the ability to heat their homes and so forth. At the same time, we should not create a further burden in the context of emissions. That can be done.

I do not know if this matter has been debated, but I suspect it has. Everybody believes that the farming community is totally responsible. That is not true. People believe that climate change only affects the farming community and that if they make the sacrifices, everything would be all over. That is not true either. This affects all of our society, urban and rural. When distribution issues arise - they have already begun to do so - it will fall to us to find some other way of bringing everybody on board. Incidentally, the jobs in the agrifood sector are not all rural based. Many of those jobs are urban based. If, for instance, we were to lose the jobs at the scale that has been suggested, we would have a serious breach to our economy that we could not afford.

What we need to do now in order to ameliorate the problem is no far as we can is sequestration. We can do that straight away. We can start next week, next month or next year, or we can avoid it all together, do nothing and say "It’s not going to happen. I do not agree with it. It is a conspiracy." and all that kind of stuff. If we follow that course, then in five or ten years we will have achieved nothing. We need to concentrate now on sequestration in respect of forestry, the means by which we heat our homes, the way we drive our cars and so on. We must also consider the degree to which modern science can come to our aid as well. For instance, the use of hydrogen has not been pursued to any great extent. Insofar as I am aware, an internal combustion engine can be fairly readily converted to run on hydrogen. That is not big task at all. It just requires the will among the scientists and the engine manufactures globally. That matter needs to be examined.

I apologise to the Chair for going off on a rant. I want to highlight the fact that we will achieve what we are seeking to do if we proceed together. We should examine all the aspects regarding how we can deal with the sequestration; how we can change over to electric or hydrogen cars; and how we can change over to hydrogen trucks and hydrogen transport. We cannot get on without transport. We have to transport. We cannot do it all on rail. If we were to do that, we would end up having more rail infrastructure than roads. That would not serve any useful purpose. We need to proceed in the right fashion and keep in mind the need to ensure the maximum return on our every move. Let us not forget this: we are lucky to have been able to come Covid-19. Covid-19 has been very expensive. The disease is not unique to Ireland. The manner in which Covid-19 was dealt with in countries across the globe has been no different. Everything has been tried but, so far, a magic bullet has not been found.

To go back to the original issue, I am of the view that we are on the right track. We need to make sure that it happens. I made the point in the past that if we had started 15 years ago to manufacture the alternatives, we would not have a problem now. That is the issue. We would not have a problem now. If we continue to blame each other for what is happening - whether it is rich blaming the poor or those in urban areas blaming their rural counterparts - we will not achieve anything. We will arrive at stalemate. Stalemate is easy to produce and difficult to sequester, no pun intended. We should follow the instructions. We should also do that in the context of Covid-19 as well of course.

I want to finish with this point. I mentioned it at another committee. In the 1970s, in my constituency we built many houses without chimneys because we were told at that time that the climate was getting warmer and that we would not need as much heat in the future. That was one of the reasons that no chimneys were put into houses. The Government of the day had to give a grant, I think it amounted to £750 or £1,000, to householders to put chimneys into their houses on foot of an increase in fuel prices rising across the globe. Everybody affected had to avail of the grant because, otherwise, they would have had no heat. Needs must, as we say.

I thank the Chair for allowing me in at this stage. I am sorry that my contribution happened to take the form of a rant. However, I look forward to the odd rant now and again.