Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 26 November 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Just Transition (Worker and Community Environmental Rights) Bill 2018: Discussion
Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will try and come at the issue from a different angle. It is an IR issue when workers find themselves redundant, out of work, without seasonal work, proper redundancy or proper access to pension schemes as a consequence of the closure of peat production. A just transition, however, involves finding places for those workers in which they can retrain or maybe find another job. Do we forget about all the other things that put those workers in the position where they are out of work or need to be upskilled and say that has nothing to do with just transition? The transition happens, perhaps very unjustly, but the role of the just transition commissioner is to pick up the pieces by retraining them. Does that really cover the definition of a just transition commissioner?