Mr. Macdara Doyle:

I would repeat and reiterate what we said in our submission. If the transition process becomes synonymous with job losses and poorer communities, nobody in their right mind will voluntarily accept that or vote for it. It is just not going to happen. We cannot expect people to vote for their own impoverishment. A very interesting study was done a couple of years ago by the Australian trade unions which compared two distinct models of transition. One was based in Appalachia and the other was the transition that took place in the Ruhr. In the latter, thousands of new jobs in new technologies were generated through a just transition that took place over many years, with planned engagement and structured dialogue. In Appalachia, the transition was outsourced to the market and ended up impoverishing thousands of communities and throwing millions of people out of work. I know which model we and most people in Ireland would prefer.