Mr. Louis Duffy:

I will look at the strategic approach taken by the sector since the start. Climate action was low on the agenda of local authorities six or seven years ago. There were different approaches and scales of activity in local authorities. With this in mind, the CCMA decided to set up CARO, a shared service that would support the development of expertise and capacity within local authorities. It was established in 2018. The first climate adaptation strategies by local authorities were adopted in 2019, which was just 18 or 20 months after the initiation. The setting has changed so much with the climate action Bill being enacted and the development of the national climate action plan. CARO has worked on the development of guidelines for local authorities in order that they will be in a position to bring in plans for their entire counties. This is a shift from where local authorities were because not only do we have to look at activity of the local authority but we have to look at the ways we can support communities, industry and agriculture in making the transition. For this reason, we can, with the appropriate resources, work with our communities and Departments. That is another challenge because every Department and sector of Government has a responsibility and a role to play. Quite often, the local authority is seen as being the main actor on the ground.

Even in the development of our climate adaptation strategies, CARO representatives were members of the national steering group for adaptation and we engaged with all of the other sectors to ensure our plans matched with theirs. We have such a high level of ambition for Ireland that there is much engagement and alignment of the work of Departments and our sector to make sure we are not contesting or overlapping with what they are doing. We are trying to make the best use of available resources. It is a challenge for us. We need additional resources in our teams and in the local authority sector. Early engagement with PPNs was supported by local authorities, even though the engagement was directly between the Department and the PPN. In every instance, a liaison was offered by local authorities and this can continue.

In the broad response to the Chair's question about how we bring it down to local level, local authorities are there to do that and, even in areas where we are not the primary service delivery agent, we work with the relevant Department and community involved in that area, such as agriculture, industry and commerce generally.