Mr. Ois?n Coghlan:

The Deputy is correct that I have some sympathy with the complexity and quantity of these processes now. Dr. Brennan and the Deputy referred to alignment. There is some misalignment even on the EU's part between the complexity of the documents it wants every member state to fill out, on the one hand, and its desire for public participation, on the other. There is a bit of a mismatch there because the NECP is not the most consultation-friendly format for members of the public, whereas the climate action plan and the processes the Department does spend some time on are better.

There is better alignment. We need to see if we can try to use them both the same. The NECP one only happens every five years. Work needs to be done. Whatever can be done in the next few months is limited. The work needs to align those public participation processes for the future.

I have less sympathy and am more baffled about why the background work on the NECP seems to not be up to scratch. That does not require public participation. In fact, it is a prerequisite for public participation. I am surprised, given all the other work we and the system have been doing, that we do not have a better data set and information for the NECP. To put it bluntly, why can we not fill out the EU form more easily than we seem to be able to, given all the work that has been going on?

The Deputy alluded to another matter. I would make the distinction between the NECP process and the long-term strategy, LTS. One bit of alignment that has happened, although there has been some confusion about this, is that there are technically two LTSs. There is one that we are due to do under the European Union process and there is an LTS in the climate law architecture too. I think it is everyone's understanding that they are supposed to be one and the same. Therefore, we as a State and an Oireachtas decided to have a long-term strategy as well as the climate action plan. It is a doubly missed trick that we will have the first LTS with minimal participation and debate at any level of Parliament, media or society. That is a problem.

Lastly, because the Deputy mentioned it, I agree about the need to balance delivery versus planning. He used just transition as an example. I have some experience in that one. Since it started moving, it has moved well. The task force the Government set up last October, on which I was a representative of the environmental pillar, with other social dialogue partners and senior civil servants, delivered its report in February. We were shocked we managed to do it in four or five months. As the Deputy knows, the Minister brought that memo to the Government recently. It has now made decisions about advancing the just transition commission and its role. It took a long time to get going after the previous efforts with Kieran Mulvey, but now that it has happened, I am hopeful that that process, which is a different kind of thing and is vital, can move fast. Hopefully a commission will be in place before the summer recess, on an administrative level, not statutory, which is the ultimate goal.