Ms Sarah Clancy:

Clare PPN is an independent PPN, so we are our own entity. Even the independent PPNs are funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the local authorities. We are accountable for our funding and we agree our work plan, but that is the extent of it. My board members and secretariat direct the work, ethos and policy of the PPN. We agree that this is the most effective model on which to build. I am speaking on behalf of the resource workers and am conscious that some of them are in good positions that they consider to be just as effective as we consider ours in the independent PPNs. There may be a non-representative group of us present. Something we lose out on slightly by being independent PPNs is the chance to have water cooler chats, where groups can chat with the people making decisions in the local authorities. We get many benefits just by being independent, but building relationships can be a little tricky for external PPNs.

On the question of a just transition and State resources, I understand the Chairman's points. However, there is no proper community engagement around any current project. This is PPNs' field of expertise. People come in with a project that they want to deliver and say that they will consult on it, but they are not really open to changing the project in any way. They then wonder why people oppose it, but people were not given a chance to co-design and to decide what was to happen in their communities. As part of the Climate Action Plan, communities designing their own just transition plans would be helpful. They would sit down and discuss where they would get their energy from, what farming would look like after it changed and what the effects of that would be on them, what they would need to make that happen and what else could happen. We are ahead in some ways because we have PPNs, the citizens' assembly and so on, but we need to bring that own to local level. No one engages in consultation unless he or she is willing to change his or her plan, and that is not the case at the moment. Energy companies say that they would like to consult communities, but the first question should be whether there is anything in their plans that is open to change. Many consultations are just companies or the State sharing information. They believe that it is enough to share information on the thing they have decided is good for a community, but it is not enough. What the State is doing may be the right thing in some cases and the wrong thing in others. I can think of some examples, such as the Galway city bypass and the ongoing plans in Ennis for a fossil-fuelled data centre. Listening to climate activists about these plans would probably prevent them from being overturned in the near future.

Without engaging in a just transition, climate action will have to be forced on communities. Doing that will be detrimental for climate action, the environment, communities and democracy itself. One of the key principles of a just transition is that it must start with a strategic dialogue. I do not mean to cast a dire warning in that regard. I am not saying that, if we carry out a bad consultation, Ireland will be in revolt, but the ingredients of dissent and misinformation are created by not showing respect to the communities involved. That is probably as far as I can go without stepping outside of what I am trying to do at this meeting and crossing over into my own opinion.