Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill 2016: Discussion

4:00 pm

Mr. Kieran Bristow:

The intent of our statement was, first of all, as we have pointed out, that we will be selling out of all our global investments over the period that we have mentioned. In some sense, the global portfolio will take care of itself. The point we were trying to make was about our investments in Ireland. We see ourselves as policy-takers - we implement policy. If it was the policy in Ireland to transition to a lower-carbon economy by targeting more investment in gas, rather than the dirty end, we would like to be able to support that. I am sorry if I created some misunderstanding, but our intent was to say that we should have some flexibility to support Irish investments in gas and the transmission of gas, for example, and if the committee might consider a narrower definition, to allow us to do that. That was the intent of our statement.