Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

No one would believe an entire Cabinet could become so disconnected from the people it is supposed to serve.

Up to 200,000 people may have died in a cyclone in Burma this week. Its ferocity may be as a result of global warming. Global warming or climate change, however, is not new. We have known about it since Fianna Fáil came back into power in 1997. The Government eventually took notice of it, producing a climate change strategy in 2000. It was, however, all bells and whistles with not one single Kyoto target met so far. The opposite is the case. Failure to implement that strategy by successive Fianna Fáil-led Governments means Ireland now has a mountain to climb, rather than just the hill that was ahead of us a decade ago. I am sure the incoming Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, will understand that soon.

During the best of times, Fianna Fáil delayed the upgrading of housing energy efficiency standards. More than 650,000 new houses were built using antiquated technology. Those new houses leak heat, costing their owners more in energy than they should. The 2000 climate change strategy was all about promises and publicity. It was just the beginning of the Government's environmental policy failures.

Fianna Fáil failed to open up public transport services to competition and delayed reforms to VRT and motor taxation for eight years, resulting in 2 million new vehicles on the road making our greenhouse gas emission levels the highest in Europe. This should be unacceptable to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley.

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