Ms Sarah Clancy:

I have several points to make about this. I agree with Mr. Stanley-Smith. In County Clare, where I work, opposition to climate action is somewhat overstated, although noisy. What is missing, however, are bodies on the ground in the communities to undertake the actions necessary. There must be a reduction in and minimisation of bureaucracy and the difficulty in getting anything done.

There are some great examples in County Clare in this regard. A new swimming pool has opened in Lahinch. It is an entirely environmentally-sustainable swimming pool. The community applied for funding. It changed it around, did everything on the application and worked on this project for years. This required, though, a small cohesive group of people to persist constantly through funding rounds and all sorts of different things. It required people to give eight years of their lives to make this project happen. That is a huge ask. This is something for people who are really committed to their communities. It is not to say that people who do not have that time and energy are not committed to their communities. They are, but their lives are playing out differently. We must, therefore, find some way to make climate action easy and accessible and facilitate it.

Turning to the relationship of the PPNs to the more action-based groups on the ground, sometimes these latter groups can find the slow and cumbersome nature of the PPN process, and our constant talk about consultations, submissions etc. frustrating because they just want to do something. This does not mean that what the PPNs are doing is not necessary. What we have tried to do, though, and what many of the PPNs have tried to do, is to seek one person to be a representative and to bring expertise to the committee. In our experience, in some ways, the reason representatives are willing to do this is not because they are being listened to on the committees, it is because they support the other things we are trying to do in the community. For the PPN to exist, they are deciding to take one for the team and they join the committee.

This is not what we want. We want the committees to be deliberative places where discussions are undertaken and recommendations are made to the county councils. The role of county councillors has not come up here. It would be remiss of us to leave without discussing their role. To date, we have had a more productive relationship with our county councillors in County Clare than with our local authority. In some ways, this has been because we can meet them and they will engage with us. It does not mean that county councillors love the PPN or anything like that, but there is dialogue. We are people in the communities that the county councillors are elected to represent. So long as we respect the fact that they are elected to represent their communities, then they engage positively with the PPN.

Another question concerns the county councillors engaging with their own local authority. How do county councillors influence the edifice of their local authority? I think our local authorities are spectacularly under-resourced. If we want local democracy, then we need them to be resourced. We need a research department in our local authorities. We do not have the proper facts and figures concerning most of the issues that affect us in County Clare. We are now undertaking a local economic and community plan while waiting for information from the Central Statistics Office, CSO. We are working on this plan, which is a six-year plan, in addition to the county development plan, in advance of the CSO information.

To give one example in this context, almost everything we have heard so far in County Clare has referred to rural depopulation. One of the first items of information coming back from the CSO, though, is that there has been a 7% increase in population in almost all the communities in County Clare. We are therefore planning for depopulation at a time when our population is actually increasing. Things like this explain why we need informed local government able to undertake a much quicker cycle of activity.

Turning to the workplace survey, for example, in County Clare we can only guesstimate how many people are employed in tourism. We can only guesstimate many things. How can we make or influence policy without good information? This is what the consultation process should be doing. I refer to a situation where neutral researchers would be coming to us with information. The groups are telling us what information they need to make decisions. I refer to having neutral researchers, without a vested interest in the outcome, telling the committee the facts and figures, such as how many people are poor in County Clare, how many are dependent on cars etc. This is the information we tend to be missing.

I am aware I have been talking about County Clare, but we tried to address this problem through our PPN in one small way. We received funding from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, to look at socio-economic rights in County Clare. I know I keep talking about money, and I am not all about money, but this funding amounted to €17,000. I handed out copies of the research derived from that funding. Dr. Conor McCabe undertook a participative research project for us. Using that €17,000, we were able to fill in many of the holes in information in County Clare. The PPN did it. It was a case of the PPN with €110,000 at its disposal versus the local authority, with 900 staff, or the Government. This shows us the situation.

All the PPNs have similar examples. I am just familiar with this one from County Clare. This type of activity is limited, though, and the local authority is now having a meeting this Friday and invited representatives of all the strategic policy committees, SPCs, and everyone else in to discuss this strategy. In a way, though, our participation through the facilitative processes was not achieving that for us. We had to do something else which required other funding. Eight social inclusion groups have worked on this project for the best part of two years now in their free time. The PPNs have great potential, but we are not supported enough.

We must take local change seriously and for this to happen local authorities also need to be invested in. We are now seeing investment being made in local authorities concerning climate action. We have, for example, witnessed the appointment of climate action officers. In County Clare, we are also getting a climate action directorate. The money alone, however, will not suffice to get this done. We need to change the ethos. Climate action must be of overriding importance to everything we are doing in County Clare, rather than it being something where we need just to tick the climate action box. How we can create the culture change required in this context will be a big aspect.

For example, when recruitment is underway for these types of roles in local authorities, and there are already superfine people in all the local authorities with great expertise around the country, we recruit people with expertise in climate action and in communicating about climate action, as well as an understanding of the science and what needs to happen in this regard. Quite often people in local authorities are transferred. We need people in these roles who have an interest in driving climate action. We do not have the time to get this wrong if they are not. We will also squander the goodwill of our communities by doing more things wrong. I know this was a bit of a fine speech but I think it probably encapsulates what we have been experiencing.