Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I did not realise I had only ten minutes. I will conclude by saying that all parties going into a general election where, thankfully, this issue is being treated with appropriate concern should commit themselves to a timescale for being carbon-neutral. We should commit ourselves to giving such credits as will give genuine incentives to people, for example, through green tax credits, to apply the technology and be comprehensively responsible. The fact that we are going down this road is somewhat of a confession of bad performance and we need to do very much more and bring the people with us.

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