Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

On the subsidiary question regarding the relationship between the NECP and the existing NMP, the requirement for a process to produce the NECP is the opportunity to upgrade, revise and replace the NMP but we must not run the risk of assuming that is what will happen in a process we can all be proud of if we do nothing because it is my understanding that the Government's first idea was go to the Commission and ask whether it could use the NMP as the first draft of the NECP at the end of this year. Thankfully, the Commission said "No" because that is not the template required under the draft governance directive. However, the Government's second plan appears to be to send some poor civil servant off into a corner to write this in the dark without thinking of the Paris Agreement and other obligations and without publicly consulting other stakeholders. Apart from not being in the spirit of the Paris accord and the energy White Paper which refers to a societal transformation and putting communities and citizens at the centre, that would be a huge missed opportunity. That is why it is important that we at least formally agree that this should be a revision of the NMP because under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, revising the NMP requires specific consultation and input from appropriate stakeholders. It is also possible that the Government could produce the NECP without talking to the Climate Change Advisory Council. That is why we need to publicly, explicitly and formally integrate the two processes rather than just hope for the best that one will replace the other.