Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

Let us keep this discussion straight.

Five major myths have been peddled, the first of which is that we have missed our targets in the first national climate change strategy. This is utter nonsense. The commitment period for the Kyoto agreement runs from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2012 so it is nonsense to suggest that targets in the future have been missed today. It is equivalent to accusing the Irish equestrian team manager of not winning gold medals in the Olympic Games of 2012. It makes no sense. It is better to base our contributions in this House on issues which are important to us all, not on nonsense.

The Opposition must be either misinformed or is attempting deliberately to distort the facts in suggesting that the targets have been missed. The first national climate change strategy document proposed indicative reductions of 15.4 million tonnes over the period 2008-2012. That is set out on page 5 of the original strategy should anybody chose to compare the figures or to test the truthfulness of the Opposition on this point.

Notwithstanding the fact that our targets were specified for 2008 to 2012 and we are still in 2007, the new strategy shows that we will achieve emissions reductions of over 17 million tonnes per annum, almost 2 million more than the original strategy. It is bunkum to suggest that we have not reached a target which is in the future and to suggest inaccurately that the facts are otherwise.

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