Mr. Joseph Curtin:

In practical terms, what that translates into is that we do not want to duplicate a target for 2020. We have a legally binding target for 2020 and if we were to say there should be a 3% annual reduction in that target or try to reformulate it for the domestic sector of the economy in legislation that would be unnecessary and would go beyond our exiting commitments, which are extremely challenging for Ireland. It is a question of trying to balance that with the need to be ambitious and to set something ambitious in legislation for 2050. My understanding of the discussions among the corporate leaders is that while there was no definitive conclusion about whether that should be a science-based target or an extremely ambitious formulation of words along the lines of carbon neutrality or a fossil-fuel-free society, those are the gamut of options from which to choose. There is a NESC paper which evaluates those options within a specific Irish context and it is worth considering. It goes into considerable detail about which of those options would be most suitable for Ireland and the reasons for that, but now is not the time to go into the details and nuances of that because it is a quite a complex subject. There is a very strong need for there to be something on the horizon in 2050 and for that to be something towards which we can benchmark progress, but we must avoid duplicating targets for 2020 and muddying our existing legally binding obligations. I think the leaders would suggest that there is no need for that.