Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Tá fáilte roimh an Taoiseach inniu. Many of the great challenges of the State the Taoiseach mentioned at the outset, including the war on Ukraine and its knock-on effects on the price of fuel, the cost of living and so on fall to the Committee on Environment and Climate Action. I must say, we have a committee that is comprised of 14 incredibly engaged members from across all parties in the Oireachtas. I pay tribute to them for their work week in, week out.

We have undertaken a huge amount of work on significant legislation that is priority legislation for this Oireachtas such as the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and more recently, the Circular Economy, Waste Management (Amendment) and Minerals Development (Amendment) Bill 2022, which is going through now. We played a big role in proposing the carbon budgets, which went before the Oireachtas recently. We are doing other work around the legislative load around how we face the challenges of our State, particularly with regard to climate, environment, biodiversity, the built environment, grid development and so on. We have had very positive engagement with other committees. I particularly pay tribute to Deputy Cahill, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, with whom we have worked closely.

I wish to mention three particular issues. They are not necessarily questions but I would certainly invite a response. They are important issues to think about. In our committee, we set out the huge opportunity for Ireland towards the end of this decade and into the next few decades in renewable energy, and for Ireland to become an energy exporter. There is a concern in the system that unless we start to prepare for that now very seriously and diligently, we may miss the boat on it and other countries will get ahead of us and we will be last. That would be remiss if that was the case.

There is a concern around the aligning of city and county development plans and the work of relevant bodies such as An Bord Pleanála, the National Transport Authority, NTA, the Office of Public Works, OPW, and other relevant bodies as per the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and how their operations will align with their duties under the Act. That is just something to put on the Taoiseach's radar. It is a very difficult challenge for those bodies to align their operations with the 51% cut and the net zero target and so on. I would not at all pretend that it is straightforward but it is something on which there needs to be a whole-of-government approach and, certainly, leadership from the Department of the Taoiseach.

Equally important is the challenge we have on communications with respect to climate. We saw recently that when the rubber hits the road with climate action we struggle as a country. The committee has engaged with people, and over the past 18 months we have become very educated on the issues. Perhaps we are guilty of not conveying to wider society the challenges that exist. Something to put on the Taoiseach's radar is that a serious effort needs to be made by the Government and all of the Oireachtas to highlight the challenges relating to climate action, whether it is cycle lanes or road projects. The recent controversy regarding turf is related to this.

I want to pick up on Deputy Quinlivan's point on resources. I accept the Taoiseach's comment that the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission is the appropriate body. He mention the Parliamentary Budget Office. There is a strong case to be made for a similar resource to educate all Oireachtas Members on the issues relating to climate, many of which are extremely complex. The members of all the committees would value such a resource.