Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for his attendance and apologise for not being present for his opening submissions, as I was at another meeting. Please feel free to stop me if I am being repetitive but the process has been quite informative. The concept of having hearings on the heads of the Bill has been highly informative in respect of this joint committee's thinking and, it is to be hoped, when the Minister proceeds to flesh out the heads of the Bill into legislation. A consensus that emerged among all groups was that the Fiscal Advisory Council could be a good template for an expert advisory body and I ask the Minister to consider this possibility. There certainly was a lot of what I would call negative reaction when the heads of the Bill were first published. However, much of that may have arisen from misunderstandings, in particular with regard to head 3, in which targets actually are set under international agreements although the 2020 target is already enshrined in legislation. It also provides for any such targets negotiated in the proposed 2015 agreement. It would be interesting were the Minister to revert to the joint committee at a later stage on the negotiations for 2015 and the process by which we can improve the position in respect of peatlands, grasslands and forestry, which probably was not covered.

Arising from the hearings themselves, I have come to the viewpoint that the best mechanism probably involves setting the national roadmap first, rather than drawing up sectoral roadmaps first and then setting the national roadmap subsequently. This might be a better process although I do not know whether the Minister has yet given thought to it. As for the seven-year review period, everyone, right across the board, considers it probably to be too long and has sought a reduction to a period of five years. One item to emerge through the hearings concerns black carbon, which does not appear to be covered under any of the existing heads. If the report of this joint committee recommends the inclusion of black carbon, does the Minister have thoughts on where it might be included under the heads of the Bill?