Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the witnesses for their contributions. I welcome this discussion. When I was a member of the Committee on Climate Action in 2018, with which Ms O'Neill engaged, much of the emphasis was on changing individual behaviour rather than system change. The change in the conversation we are now seeing is welcome. Previously, the discussion was mainly around why we needed a carbon tax. The argument was that we needed to change individual behaviour, despite the fact people had no options because they could not have a warm home without using carbon to heat it or they did not have access to public transport and so on. I will not rehearse the old arguments. We are seeing a welcome change in the debate.

The report yesterday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, reiterates these points. I have a question for Ms O'Neill, who gave a fine analysis of the report on RTÉ radio yesterday. There is one part of it I found extraordinary. It would be amazing if we could implement this particular recommendation. IPCC working group III has stated that "global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be just a few percentage points lower in 2050 if we take the actions necessary to limit warming to 2°C ... or below, compared to maintaining current policies". The reports states with confidence that mitigation options costing $100 or less per tonne of carbon could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by at least half the 2019 figure by 2030. That is remarkable and our economies should be used to do it.

However, when we talk about system change, the problem we have is our system is dominated by the market. In her opening statement, Ms Carmody talked about the number of challenges we are facing, including the cost-of-living challenge, the conflict in the world, the acute global hunger crisis, climate change and the impacts of Covid-19. We can now add to that a possible recession, with the markets starting to get jittery over banks collapsing, including Credit Suisse and a number of US banks. There is the possibility of another global recession because this craziness is looming large. A system change must be about looking at how economies can work differently. We do not just need a different kind of government or, as Dr. Healy said, more democratic engagement between elections. All of that is perfectly fine. The problem, however, is that the markets dominate every decision we make. The markets are driving our housing policy as well as policy on health and climate. How can we get out of that? I would like to hear the opinions of all the witnesses on this. We need to have a serious conversation about challenging the existence of the market itself.

Energy is an example I draw to the attention of Ms O'Neill because it reiterates my concerns and the point I am making. If we were to take the energy market in this country back into full public control and give the ESB the mandate it used to have, which was a not-for-profit mandate, we could really transform overnight how we produce energy. We need to remove the profit motive and act for the common good, as was done in the 1930s and 1940s when the lights were turned on in every town and village, but this time we must do it with renewables. We must do it without the competition created by the market and the sort of chaos that brings to everything we try to do. That is the point I emphasise in regard to sustainable development goals and the very helpful report produced by the IPCC yesterday.