Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

If he does not succeed, it must be found somewhere or it must be paid for. Of course, the 3.6 million tonnes a year in allowances which the Minister is already committing to buy will also need to be increased if he does not achieve the reductions of 8 million tonnes a year which he hopes to achieve through all of the various worthy measures he outlined.

My difficulty with him not achieving that 8 million tonnes a year reduction is his Government's record. It is quite horrific to look back at the litany of missed opportunities over the past ten years where this country could have achieved real and enduring reductions in carbon emissions and the extent to which we are contributing to the global warming problem. We are repeatedly told this country has built 500,000 new dwellings in the past ten years. That is great and I am certainly happy with that, but over that period there has also been a European directive aimed at energy conservation in building which requires the energy labelling of buildings. That energy labelling directive should have been in force from 1 January 2005. The Minister did not implement it. He has actually looked for a derogation until 2009 in implementing the labelling of buildings. In the period of this rapid growth in construction there was an ideal opportunity to put in place the energy conservation measures which were coming down the track at us anyway and which would have made a significant contribution to energy reduction and conservation in this country.

The Government's second failure is in the area of agriculture. Over the past number of years there has been a vast change in agriculture in this country and in the way in which the European Union relates to farming and agriculture, not only here but in other countries as well. The Government has gone along with a system which effectively pays farmers to produce nothing, when in fact it could have promoted a system which would have encouraged farmers to switch to producing the very crops on which alternative fuels and biofuels could have been developed. Why are farmers now being paid to produce nothing when there could have been a shift in production, which would not only have provided for a sustainable future for agriculture and rural communities in this country but which would also have made a large contribution to our environmental obligations and to securing fuel supplies on a sustainable basis in the future?

Probably the biggest example of the Government's failure in this area relates to the sugar factories. The sugar factories are being closed and put on the market for significant office, commercial and residential developments, at a time, I might add, when the privatised sugar company is refusing to pay the redundancy payments to its former workforce who made the company what it was in the first place. Instead of those factories being turned into commercial buildings, businesses etc. and making a fortune for those who will benefit from the sugar company's privatisation, which is also a Fianna Fáil legacy, they could have been used for the production of biofuels — another missed opportunity by this Government.

The Government has delayed the implementation of public transport strategies which would reduce reliance on the private car. In fact, in the course of the past couple of weeks this country has been criticised again by the European Environment Agency for its pattern of development, which is resulting in sprawl and in a dispersed form of settlement reliant on private transport and resulting in increased problems and an increased burden in terms of our Kyoto commitments. The Government of course has great plans for public transport. We have heard and will hear over the next number of months leading into the general election, of nothing but Transport 21. This is also fairy tale stuff, which is being pumped out in advance of the election and contrasts badly with the Government's record of delivery over ten years in office.

After the litany of failures, we will end up by not meeting our Kyoto commitments. The Minister says that it does not really matter because we do not make a big contribution to global pollution anyway. He said that if all Irish emissions were to shut down overnight, the impact would be lost in a matter of hours. In other words, he is telling the House——

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