Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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I thank the delegates for their presentations and for the documents that have led to this point. There seems to be a conflict in the advices of the current and previous Attorneys General. The Government does not publish that advice, but it was the basis for not including targets. It is important that we understand the reasons for the decision. Were they purely financial? Was it a question of protecting the State against the possible cost of not reaching our agreed international targets?

The clock is already ticking on 2020. It will not wait for the legislation. As outlined today, more than legislation is required. Practical implementation, good institutional arrangements and a means of tracking progress and making changes are necessary. In terms of policy choices, the 2011 NESC report recommended that we consider measures that have a cumulative benefit. The downturn in the economy has caused a reduction but perhaps we should consider the retrofitting of homes and so forth, measures that would have a benefit beyond 2020. Is this matter being tracked? The home retrofit scheme has almost collapsed and people are being alienated by policy decisions, for example, not ring-fencing the carbon tax. People can see a relationship between one and the other. Choices have a bearing on our culture. Accepting that the clock is ticking, are we climate change-proofing policies and financial decisions? We may need to reverse some policy decisions, even those made in the past year.

The three main sectors are agriculture, residential housing and transport. The changes in the public transport system that we are considering might have short-term gains, but they will not produce the long-term modal shifts that we require if we are to encourage people to use public transport. This is the "How To".

As milestones have to do with policy choices, I will not press the issue, but we in this country have made an industry of writing reports. Given the amount of material that we are supposed to read on this subject, several trees must have been chopped down. An element of simplicity will be necessary. Policy nerds, so to speak, should not be the only ones tracking changes. We must have simple mechanisms so that people can buy into them. This change will not be imposed - people must buy into it. This element is essential if we are to create a culture of individual responsibility.

I do not know if that can be put into legislation or if culture can be changed that way. Policy choices are going to be part of that.

The opportunity will be in finding different ways of using smart grids and producing energy. We tend to take a very short-term approach, and just recently, we saw where much money was invested over a number of years in a particular company doing some pilot work in the Atlantic. Before getting to a point where it delivers, it may be cut off at the knees because we take shorter-term policy choices. How would the new institutional arrangements being discussed impact on that? There was talk of this being driven by a Cabinet Minister. Is it envisaged that this would be a cross-departmental arrangement as well as across institutions? There is no point in the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government having responsibility for climate change if the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources is doing something at variance with that.