Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 8 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Irish Experience of Community-led Climate Action: Public Participation Networks

Ms Cliona Kelliher:

There are examples in other countries of how dialogue works very well with industry in many different ways. The nature of bottom-up or flat-structure engagement is that one cannot have a prescriptive model. It is iterative and always changing and depends on the circumstances. There are broad outlines of how those kind of dialogues can work well, that is, by obvious things such as mutual respect, being listened to and being heard and everybody having an equal say. Dialogues have to be designed in a bottom-up fashion for them to be most effective.