Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Surely that is an issue in terms of expansion. Do we need to look at constraining certain activities?

I have another query to follow up on land use. I mentioned peatlands. We are talking about hundreds of millions of euro going into peatlands but we know that they have an early and immediate reduction in the context of emissions. A damaged peatland emits whereas a restored or even a rewetted peatland will store. Forestry, which seems to be getting a lot of focus in the land use discussion, will not be reducing emissions within the 2025 budget and possibly even by the 2030 budget. We know that it takes some 15 years for newly-planted forests to become net emitters. Again, there is a concern around the huge amount of felling that is taking place? We know that Ireland is a net exporter of timber. This is not for national demand, it is largely for export, during this period when we are operating within the challenges of that first budget, which we have to hit if we are to be credible.

The Minister referred to us not breaking our contracts. Ireland has broken its contracts in its commitment under the sustainable development goals. It is estimated that we have not been fulfilling our share of the €100 billion that was promised in climate funding. Even the projected €225 million that has been spoken about is just less than half of the €545 million that would be Ireland's share. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.