Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Taoiseach. He is very welcome to this annual engagement. I represent the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action. I believe, in no small part due to the work of the committee and, certainly, the wider Oireachtas, both the Government and the Opposition, that our systems are fundamentally changing in the right direction. That is very positive. I commend the Taoiseach on all his efforts. It is important to stress this involves both the Government and the Opposition. Notwithstanding the challenges, rows and differences we have on policy, we are finally starting to go in the right direction. Leadership is shown across the House on that.

One deficit, which speaks to the resources point colleagues mentioned, is that climate is quite a technical subject. We are talking about numbers and policies that equate to numbers of kilotons or megatons of carbon. It is fair to say, as laypeople and politicians, that many of us are not equipped to deal with the complexity of the task at hand. How can we say which policies equate to how much in carbon reductions? There is an important piece about extra resources in that regard, not for committees and not strictly for our committee but for the whole of the Oireachtas. I am thinking of the model of the Parliamentary Budget Office that is there already. I asked the Taoiseach's predecessor, the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, about this last year. He gave tacit support to the idea that there would be an attachment to the Parliamentary Budget Office, or a unit, that would help Members in that very technical subject. I acknowledge that it is not a role directly for the Taoiseach but he will have thoughts on the matter and, perhaps, some influence.

I thank the Taoiseach for referring the report of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss to the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. We are all very enthusiastic about getting stuck into that and reporting on it by Christmas.