Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

Deputy Bruton asks a really fair and challenging question. There is a tension now between the speed with which we need to go and the imperative to bring everybody with us to make it possible. It is not going to be straightforward. Dr. Healy is correct that it does need some overarching contract where losses in one area can be offset by obvious gains in another, apart altogether from the obvious merits of having a contract. People can lose in one area and gain in another. To give an example, people might lose parking spaces outside their local shops but gain a safe route to school for children who are cycling or walking. There will be swings and roundabouts for individual households, never mind communities or businesses. However, in the context of all of that, we must prioritise those at risk of poverty so that whatever else happens, we do not increase the risk of poverty for those who are currently at risk and do not increase inequality in our society as a whole. Therefore, people who are wealthier are more likely to be losers in the adjustment we have to make.

Finally, general communication is required, like there has been with Covid. There have been huge inconveniences and restrictions on us for two years but there has been a general social acceptance that this is for the greater good because of a threat, which in the case of Covid is very obvious and very near term. We have to create a social consensus that the threat from climate change is as real as that. The evidence from the EPA study published just before Christmas is fascinating. The evidence of where the Irish public is at in the context of climate change is actually quite encouraging but that needs to be cultivated and nurtured by all of us here, and particularly by our political leaders, over not just weeks and months or the length of the Covid pandemic, but for the next decade and beyond.