Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

It is almost a year since the national mitigation plan was published. Our analysis at the time was that is was "more an "action promise" than an action plan" and simply did not contain enough measures to cut pollution. This verdict has been confirmed by the critique of the Climate Change Advisory Council, which said the plan needed new and extra measures to be fit for purpose, and the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, when it presented its analysis of our rising emissions. Even more recently, the European Commission country report on Ireland for 2018, published in March as part of the semester process, stated: "As [the plan] stands ... it offers few specific new mitigation measures." The EPA is due to release new projections in about two weeks time. Given the current state of its methodology and Irish policy, it is very likely the projections will project even more increases in Irish emissions. As members know, the Taoiseach himself said that Ireland is a laggard on climate action and that he is not proud of our record. For us, given everything the committee has heard, the obvious conclusion is that the current national mitigation plan simply is not fit for purpose and needs to be scrapped and replaced.

There a number of ways this can be formally triggered. The Minister himself can trigger a revision or a replacement of the mitigation plan on foot of the latest periodic review of the climate council, under Section 4(5) of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. This is specifically provided for. The Minister has called the plan a living document and has said it will keep changing. The council says new measures are required. The prudent course of action, then, is for the Minister to formally trigger a revision. This could be integrated with the national energy and climate plan that is now required. The second way is that the Dáil could call for the mitigation plan to be replaced. I think all opposition parties represented on this committee voted for such an amendment to the climate Bill that would have required the mitigation plan to be voted on by the Dáil because it is so important and because of its five-year duration. Of course, there is nothing to stop the Dáil organising itself to have such a debate and such a vote to call on the Minister to revise the plan. A third way is that the Government could decide it needs to revise the plan on the basis of the evidence, of the landmark Citizens' Assembly report and of the need for the national energy and climate plan under the Paris Agreement's EU's plans to implement that.

What can the committee do now? We think it should write to the Minister asking him to trigger the revision of the mitigation plan on foot of the critiques of the climate council and the Citizens' Assembly. We call on the parties that are represented on this committee to organise time for a Dáil debate to that effect. Specifically, it is also about the Citizens' Assembly report, which is to the Oireachtas and not just the Government. As members know, we wrote Stop Climate Chaos to both the business committee and to this committee saying it is really up to the Oireachtas to ensure that that report is treated with the same seriousness as the Oireachtas treated the report from the assembly on the eighth amendment and that some kind of dedicated committee needs to be put in place to ensure that happens in as timely a fashion as possible. We look forward to hearing the committee's plans for that.