Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a fundamental question for our European colleagues around what it is that we are trying to protect. Notwithstanding the importance of making sure that there is proper biodiversity, habitats and heritage designation, what is it that we want? In the face of huge catastrophe for the world, all the great and the good went, as part of COP27, to the middle of the desert and spent a couple of days there talking but I did not hear anybody talk about climate adaptation, and the works that will be needed from a civil or engineering standpoint to protect communities. They all talked about reducing emissions.

It is great that people are buying electric cars. They are plugging them into the Deputy's constituency below in Moneypoint, County Clare feeling that they are of no consequence to the environment, yet they spew out tens of thousands of tonnes of God only knows what, from Moneypoint, down on the rest of us. All these people feel good about themselves because they have bought an electric car but it has a battery that was harvested out of the ground from a big, huge pit in Western Australia with thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide gone up into the atmosphere. None of these things are without their consequences. I am routinely asked which is cleaner, the second-hand diesel engine, which I have, or the lithium and beryllium battery that was mined in Western Australia but is now plugged into Moneypoint. I am unconvinced.