Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)

I will answer the Senator’s last question first in the time I have. Compared with our European colleagues, Ireland’s reporting on climate action plans is annual, which means they are more exact than most of our colleagues across Europe. Accountability is built in, even to the action plan preparations year on year. We are now moving on CAP 26.

I wish to respond to the Senator’s emergency measures piece. It is about putting the architecture in place. Planning is critical. The Planning and Development Act the previous Government brought in is absolutely critical to ensuring we can accelerate delivery, particularly of renewables and other infrastructure we need as a State to meet our climate targets. Both climate adaptation measures and energy are critical. Looking at Senator Noonan, who is sitting beside Senator Higgins, I think of the work done in the area of marine planning and the creation of MARA. All of those things and that infrastructure are in place from a legislative perspective. The Planning and Development Act is going to be critical to ensuring we can accelerate the delivery.

The other thing is the national designated maritime area plan, DMAP. A decision this Government made early in its term was to post ORESS 1. The south cost DMAP was to show we have a pipeline of projects.