Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister and wish him the very best during his period in office. I also welcome this debate and propose, first, to address the issue of climate change. I do not necessarily, on this or any other subject, accept expert views uncritically on trust. Experts tend to be passionate about their subjects, activists about their campaigns. Nonetheless, global warming needs to be approached, first, on the basis of the precautionary principle — at any rate, many of the measures required may be good for us — and, second, on the basis that this is not an island but a country with global responsibility which must take account of global warnings, even when we may not be as directly affected as others.

The following considerations present difficulties in approaching climate change in a strictly Irish context. Climate change has occurred throughout human history and obviously it is difficult to disentangle what may be cyclical from what is contingent on recent human activity. For example, are we saying — perhaps we are — that it would be a disaster for Greenland to return to the milder climate it enjoyed in the early Middle Ages, the Finland of the Norse sagas?

In Ireland there is some difficulty in detecting substantial evidence of climate change and assessing the consequences. I have a table from the Met Office indicating how mean air temperature has evolved during the past century and up to 2006. It shows that the period from 1900 to 1930 was a little cooler than normal, the period from 1930 to 1960 was a little warmer than normal, the period between 1960 and 1990 was average to cooler than normal and the period from 1990 until the present has been distinctly warmer than normal. Looking at the table it is hard to be certain what is cyclical and what is underlying change. For example, climate change has not to date resulted in extremes in weather in Ireland. When did the temperature in any part of this island last exceed 30° Celsius? While I do not have the exact date, I believe it occurred some time in the late 1970s.

Thankfully, although a possibility, there have been no major floods recently. On the other hand, plenty of floods occurred across the water in Britain but perhaps that is coincidental. One concrete change, as someone in his or her sixth decade will notice from childhood times, is that winters are undoubtedly milder. Whereas in the winter of 1962-63 we had at least six weeks of hard snow and ice, nowadays one is lucky if snow lies for 24 hours. Apart from certain Border drumlin areas and the mountains, Ireland is almost a snow-free country.

I noted with interest, when reading Ordnance Survey reports from the 1830s, that John O'Donovan, in a letter to one of his correspondents, was convinced that summers were warmer in his youth. We are sometimes wont to believe any few weeks of the same kind of weather is evidence of global warming. To those of us on the campaign trail in April and May the weather seemed to be sunny day after day and we were beginning to look for sun cream. Then there was a sharp reversal between June and August, which was followed by relatively mild weather until about one week ago. Although people talk about drought when we have two weeks of dry weather, it is a long time since we had it.

I am convinced that consistency, security and quality of water supply is a serious issue. While problems experienced in this area are in many cases due to pressure of population increase and relatively elderly infrastructure, action needs to be taken.

Many other parts of the world have been prone to weather extremes going back as far back as biblical times. In expressing a degree of scepticism I nonetheless believe we are required to be prudent, as was the case when medical experts warned us that a variant CJD epidemic could costs tens of thousands of lives. While the loss of life from variant CJD has been very low, this is sometimes due to human intervention to ensure the worst does not happen. It is important if there is any danger of a tipping point being reached, to take precautions to avert such an eventuality.

I agree with the previous speaker that changes in climate place a greater emphasis on local production. Some of our patterns of activity need to be questioned, in particular, the practice of transporting food that could be produced here thousands of miles across the world. In our domestic context, I am unhappy that rail freight transport has been virtually closed down, although I do not hold exaggerated views on what this sector could achieve. One then has the spokesperson for the Irish Road Haulage Association complaining that his members carry 95% or more of freight and need Government assistance. The reason they carry this volume of freight is that we have allowed rail freight transport, more or less, to go to the wall.

If we want to encourage people to use public transport, we will need much greater car parking capacity. I will repeat the comments I made on this issue in the House last week. Capacity of Luas car parks and car parks at rail stations is at bursting point, which will limit the growth of public transport.

What I find extremely irritating and must cost a fair amount of energy to produce are the fliers that drop out of every newspaper and publication one opens. I am convinced that 95% of them go straight into the wastepaper basket. They are an example of the wasteful society. One of the reasons I share An Post's lack of enthusiasm for the introduction of post codes is that it would encourage the production of even more of this useless literature.

It has been traditional in the past 30 or 40 years for Ministers of all Governments to travel in Mercedes cars. While I accept that people like the most powerful cars, is this the best example to set or should the practice be reconsidered?

On security of energy supply, I would like the gas supplies off the north-west coast to be brought ashore. Every attempt has been made to try to reach some consensus. I do not believe there is a veto. I have some reservations about the ultra-liberalisation of energy supply. As the Electricity Supply Board has served us well, the Government should think hard about whether we would be better off continuing to have one main supplier. I am sorry to see climate change being used to foster and revive arguments about the need for nuclear energy. That is neither appropriate nor necessary for Irish circumstances.

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