Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 21 February 2023

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised)

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We are looking at the Department's stewardship of climate action, and then we look at greenhouse gases and get a 2020 figure of 57.7 million tonnes. We know that that is completely irrelevant to what is happening today. These output indicators should be taken seriously by the Government. I do not mean the political Government; I mean the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and its oversight. It would be preferable to see a 2022 estimate and a 2023 forecast. It would be more meaningful. Maybe this is not the place where the Minister of State wants to present them, but I think it would be a useful place to do so. We would see the whole thing in one picture. I would like to see that for other Departments too, not just the Minister of State's, such that when it comes to looking at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the agricultural emissions would be in its REV in order that anyone coming in here would be able to cross-examine the Department on not just the financial but also the climate budget dimension.