Professor Barry McMullin:

It is not unusual per se. "Peer review" is a phrase that is widely used in the academic world. It is not one thing; there are many different forms of peer review. In a sense, a gold standard in this field is the IPCC process whereby when it is working on reports, they are published in draft form. There is a process where anybody essentially can volunteer themselves to provide review comments, but, in particular, people with specific expertise can volunteer themselves to provide comments. The IPCC assesses and responds to every comment it gets in a public and open way. That form of public, open peer review is arguably the most robust version. It is challenging administratively and so forth, but in this case, that model would probably be merited.

I completely understand that the council had timescale concerns and it only has so many resources available. This process we are talking about today of a budgeted option in accordance with the climate Act is not a one-off thing. It has to be repeated at intervals. It is the absolute centrepiece of the legislation and of climate mitigation and policy domestically for Ireland. There is considerable merit in it. The council has acknowledged that it has struggled to determine the most appropriate way of making this assessment. It made various changes between the first cycle of carbon budgets and this cycle. Some of them were definitely improvements, but, as we have documented, we have concerns about others. That is process we have in mind. It is not something completely bizarre or different from what is well understood in the scientific and academic community.