Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is coming up with regard to biodiversity and the citizens' assembly report on that is before the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action at the moment. The key issue coming out of that is the need for a higher-level tsar of some description to drive some of these elements that need to be interlocked across government. Those elements are obviously enshrined in the sustainable development goals. There is a sense that biodiversity has fallen off the radar, enforcement levels are low and we have allowed continuing degradation of all indicators of water quality and so on. What sort of powers does that group actually have to bang heads together and tell sectors that are not seen as meeting the requirements to sort things out?