Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

If we look at the budgets, there is a five-year budget until 2025 and another one until 2030. During that time any Minister can of course be called before a committee. There is a legal requirement on the Government to meet those emissions ceilings. There are sectoral emissions ceilings for which a corresponding Minister can be found in each case. In any event, where a target is not being met, the Minister can be directly quizzed, and there is a legal requirement to meet the targets. There is also an examination by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform as to how each Department is doing on its allocations. The point I want to make is that the oversight of how people are doing on the climate action plan or whether they are meeting their emissions ceilings is not a function of my Department, and it cannot be. Our climate action plan is a whole-of-government plan, so something like the Department of the Taoiseach has to have the co-ordinating role to keep track of all the other Departments. It is not a-----