Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am interested in hearing the witnesses' insight into a couple of things. A lot has been done in France. There was a massive reaction with the mouvement des gilets jaunes. Are there lessons to be learned from that, which was quite a jolt to the system?

The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, did some work on how to frame this discussion and it came up with the concept of appealing to people to have resilience, that is, that your farm, enterprise or family would be resilient for the long-term future. There is great traction in that because it emphasises more of a co-operative approach than one of finger-pointing. Arising from that, do the witnesses have any information on how successful the Dutch were when they sought to form sectoral compacts? They recognised it was not going to be a matter of individual action but saw the possibilities for community in sectors. For example, the food sector is brought together and, instead of just pointing the finger at farmers and calling them the villains, it is asked what features are needed of a food and agriculture sector if it is to remain competitive in the long term. We get into a somewhat different conversation from a conversation on climate inventory that looks at biomethane and all of this. Is there evidence to suggest this approach of everyone getting resilient within their own sectors can get traction? It would also facilitate some of the regulation that would otherwise be seen as an awful attack on us if consumers, producers and everyone else were all in the room together. People can then see that, for example, we have to get rid of non-recyclable plastics and, the sooner we get it done, the better. I would like to hear the witnesses' take on that.