Dr. Aoibhinn N? Sh?illeabh?in:

I might take up the first point the Deputy made, on representativeness. I have heard from different pockets of people the question of how representative this citizens' assembly is. We must remind ourselves that this was one of the first citizens' assemblies that invited households across Ireland. You did not have to be on the electoral register. In this regard, the citizens' assembly was one of the most encompassing. It brought in communities that would not necessarily have engaged with the electoral system traditionally. The 99 members who came across were chosen based on CSO statistics. We had so many between 18 and 24 and so many above 65, and we had people who came to Ireland from other countries, including a Ukrainian. We had a member of the Traveller community and a leaving certificate student, and there were people who were unemployed and those who may have had literacy issues, but we were engaging with them in different ways. In that regard, I am quite confident we had a quite representative snapshot of society in the room.

I want to highlight the fact that in Ireland we take 99 people, with the chair as the 100th member, to represent our population of, let us say, 5 million. France has a population of 64 million and its citizens' assemblies, which feed into its policy work, are made up of 150 people. Therefore, we are actually more representative.

Sometimes I have heard the accusation that assembly members are not elected. I remind everyone, including ourselves, that all we have come up with here is a blueprint that we suggest elected representatives of the Oireachtas, including members of this committee, might like to consider. We have no power otherwise. This is just another element. It is like the fourth leg of a three-legged stool with elected representatives, our Civil Service and other engaged stakeholders that always contribute to policymaking. A citizens' assembly is just adding to that. In Ireland, we can be really proud that we do deliberative democracy really well. Many nations look to us in that regard. I just wanted to talk about the representativeness of our citizens' assembly.

Moving this forward and talking about the transition, it is also important to say that some agencies, groups, communities and elements of Departments have already considered these recommendations and said they should be doing what is involved.

They have gone ahead and started to work on elements of it. It is not necessarily the case that this will require a movement of everyone to come on board with thinking we need to address the problem of biodiversity loss. It is widely accepted that we need to do it and now we can talk about the structural policy issues.

One aspect we have not touched on very much is NGOs. We heard a lot from NGOs working with the environment, including many voluntary groups working to conserve rivers, traditional Irish animals such as the wild goat and so on. They are doing great work. They, including people such as Mr. Joyce, are doing it because they love it and have an interest in nature, but they are not necessarily being supported strategically and their work is not being recorded. It is uncategorised. No one oversees it. We could definitely be doing that, helping this transition by co-ordinating and documenting the work that is already going on.

There is also a lot in the recommendations relating to urban planning and design, including the importance of green spaces for those of us who live in towns and cities. Community gardens are hugely important. We saw throughout the Covid-19 pandemic how necessary it is for public health and well-being that we have access to green spaces. All those issues are part of the transition the Deputy spoke about. It is important to note that.

Industries and motivating the private sector are referenced in the recommendations. Private sector companies are already going towards it in their consideration of environment, social and governance, ESG, issues. They are all trying to tick that box in order to say they are working for the environment and society. A lot is already happening.

The conversations that need to happen to move everyone else forward will be complex. We must remind ourselves that we rely on the nature not only to provide food, but for ecosystem services such as water purification, pollination - one in every three bites of food we take depends on a pollinator - photosynthesis, carbon sequestration and climate regulation. Those are all part of the ecosystem services we depend on. We have probably not focused on that enough in our public conversations. We need to consider it now as another element of nature that we depend on and that we depend on farmers for. We have to bring that in as part of the transition.

I was watching a nature programme with my children at home. We were looking at trees being torn down in another part of the world and listening to David Attenborough talking about it. My four-year-old said, "Mum, we do not do that in Ireland, do we? We look after our nature". I told him that we do not do a great job at the moment, but we will so he does not need to worry about it. When we are talking and thinking about this transition, we have to remember that we are the old fogies. We have to put the structures and supports in place for the generation after us that already cares and is depending on us to do this work. Yes, difficult discussions need to happen. We need to think about structuring, resourcing and so forth. A swell of movement is coming behind us. It is incumbent on us now to ensure we do not leave them to fall off a ledge.