Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank our witnesses for coming in today. I want to go back to an issue that I raised with them previously when they made a presentation to Deputies and Senators in the audiovisual room, namely the public service element of this. I have just come from chairing a meeting relating to a public service performance report for one particular Department. What was fascinating was that in the Department's report on how it is spending its budget there was not one mention of climate or nature. It is clear that we have an issue across Departments. I asked a question about one particular element and was told that a representative of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications sits on the committee. This is the main issue, this siloing and the belief that as long as there is somebody in the room it will be grand, whatever the outcome, and if climate and nature does not make it onto the balance sheet, that is grand too. This goes back to the point made by Dr. O'Mahony on reductionism. I have a concern, having listened to the conversation, and I hope our guests can alleviate it, which is that we would have a spreadsheet, a balance and would plug in all of the numbers and out would come one number at the end. As I understand it, that is not what our guests are talking about. They are talking about everything being looked at financially. It is not that we are saying that we still make the decision at the end to go with the most cost-effective thing. It is actually about saying that we have to take nature into account in every financial decision that we are making. That is the aim in the context of public service. This could be of real benefit when it comes to setting budgets every year and when it comes to transparency in relation to how those budgets are spent.

My second point is that people who are involved in business are regular people like you and me. They are not just out to make profit for the sake of it. They want to do the right thing but where society and the State fails them is in not providing them with the opportunity to get involved in protecting nature on their terms because those are the terms they are faced with. We have seen it in relation to the circular economy, for instance. Unless we put the regulations in place, we are not allowing them to make a business decision because it will have such a financial cost to them. Their business would fail if they did something when they are not helped by the State to make it financially viable.