Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I chair the Cabinet sub-committee on climate change and energy security and the membership includes the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Health and Children, the Minister for Transport, the Attorney General and the Minister of State with responsibility for energy and the environment.

In a previous reply I detailed the number of times the sub-committee has met to deal with various issues, including important decisions made on climate change during the past two years and in preparation for the meeting in Copenhagen. Many of them are dealt with at EU level, which involves co-ordinating positions and ensuring that particular Irish concerns are taken into account on the sequestration of carbon, forestry and all the technical matters that come into play when assessing where the burden sharing is to take place and in what way Ireland's interests are being protected and fair play is given to the country, given the particular characteristics of our farming and forestation, in line with the cases made by other countries and sought by the Presidency, in this case the French Presidency, as it seeks to pull together a common EU position in preparation for the Copenhagen meeting in December which is a wider international negotiating forum.

This is a continuing requirement and the Cabinet sub-committee is there to consider the technical details, the state of negotiations and the contribution made by various Departments and what studies are being done. These can be dealt with more efficiently and effectively at a Cabinet sub-committee meeting than as part of a wider Cabinet discussion where there are many issues on the agenda in any event given the time constraints involved.

With regard to the Cabinet sub-committee on health, the Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs attends its meetings and it deals with broad policy issues and challenges in the health service. It has met on the occasions mentioned by Deputy Ó Caoláin and child protection issues were discussed at its most recent meeting. The Minister of State with responsibility for children has been asked by the Government to prepare a detailed implementation plan arising out of the Ryan report to be brought to the Government prior to the end of July.

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