Caít Keane (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their most informative presentations. This is probably one of the most important meetings of this committee because we are all charged with sustainable development and ensuring that we, as politicians, leave the earth much better than we found it. Hopefully, we will all strive to do that. How to do it and how much it will cost are the two big questions.

With regard to how to do it, we are looking to experts such as the witnesses and everybody else we can find to show how that can be done. We all want to do the best we can. That is what I will be trying to do anyway to lead to a progressive society. We cannot lose sight of having a competitive society either in economic terms. Developing a competitive society as well as a progressive and sustainable society is the balancing act we are charged with, and we want to know how best to do it. That is what this committee is about. I do not know how many times we will be able to thrash it out so perhaps the Chairman will tell me how much time we have to consider the issue.

Policy development is important. The word "transition" must be used because we cannot shoot all of the cows or get rid of all of the electricity. This is a transitionary period because one cannot make the changes all in the one day. We would like to meet our targets straight away. The EPA graph, using orange and yellow lines, showed that we will not meet the target by 2016 if we do not use alternative methods. As 2016 is not far away we must quickly decide how to make changes.

Can the Chairman confirm whether all of the submissions are available to the public?