Mr. Oisín Coghlan:

If I understand Deputy Chambers correctly, he is asking what would make the most difference to our emissions in that context. It is clear from recent figures from the EPA that the thing that is making the most difference is when Moneypoint power station is offline. We and Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos have been talking to the trade unions much more than we have before and engaging with them around this concept of just transition, given the need for our rapid exit from coal and peat burning and the fact that when Moneypoint is fully online, that method of generation provides 25% of our electricity but 50% of the pollution from our electricity. Rather than us saying we know when we think that method of generation should finish, because we know that peat burning should not go beyond the end of next year at the latest, given that the subsidies end this year, and coal should end before 2025, what needs to happen and our ask now is that there be negotiations between the Government, trade unions, the local community and other stakeholders, including environmental groups, on that just transition package and what it will look like to help those communities move to a flourishing future that is not dependent on fossil fuel-based work.

We welcomed the announcement in the budget by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, that he was going to appoint a just transition commissioner, and that may be faster than the recommendation of a task force or the unions' preference, or the language they used, of a commission based on the Scottish model. What we need to see start happening now is a single person commissioned to bring people into a room to chair negotiations. There are models of deals around this transition in Spain, Germany and other countries. It would be great to see the Minister appoint that commissioner before he goes to Madrid, where in fact they have a very good just transition deal around coal, and for that to start happening on the ground, for those meetings and negotiations to begin to get us off coal and peat as soon as possible.