Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to say that the Act provides that the Ministers in each sectoral area are obliged to come before the Oireachtas committee, as appropriate, and account for what they are doing. They can be called before the committee and held to account.

On the question of EPA measurements, the inventories and that whole process are based on tonnage and not percentages. It is a matter of the tonnes of carbon that are not emitted into the atmosphere.

The Senator also asked about embodied energy in buildings. Considerations in that regard are contained in the sectoral emissions ceiling for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. I agree with the Senator that embodied carbon in the building sector is an important issue. There is potential in switching to a model that encourages the storage of carbon within wood-framed housing and so on.

The Senator also asked about LULUCF. We are, to a certain extent, going over old ground in that regard. The crux of the matter is that the process is not completed. We are continuing this land use review. The changed figures in respect of the tonnage of carbon that will emerge from that review, in terms of what is possible within the LULUCF sector, is not something I can pre-empt, nor would I wish to do so. We are not saying LULUCF will be considered exclusively but it is likely to be a significant part of considerations. There is a problem, in the sense that there is a deteriorating source. The solutions are not insignificant, it seems to me, if we get our land use management right. We will not be prescriptive in that respect until a review is concluded. I do not believe that hinders any Department or sector. What it will take to deliver the existing allocations will be beyond compare to the scale and nature of the change. I do not think any overshoot in that respect would be a problem. I do not believe this further allocation will hinder any body in doing what it needs to do. That is what I keep coming back to. It is about delivering now. We will carry out that land use review, which will help us to complete the process in the reallocation of the balancing amount. That should not, however, stop us focusing on what we need to do now in every sector, including in land use.