Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Catherine Murphy on introducing this important Bill, which offers a good basis upon which to build comprehensive climate change legislation.

Nobody can dispute the existence of climate change, a global phenomenon the consequences of which are felt locally. Entire countries are under threat from its adverse effects, with the polar caps melting and the world experiencing flooding, drought and a dangerously high increase in temperature. One does not need to watch David Attenborough documentaries to see the consequences of climate change as there is not a community on the island that has not experienced them. Villages and towns have been flooded.

The previous speaker, a former Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, outlined the position in agriculture. Large areas across the midlands and east, where cereal crops are concentrated, have been flooded in each of the past three years. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, will have seen in his constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny summer flooding on land that had not previously flooded. The problem is causing damage to crops, especially cereals, resulting in a major loss of income for farmers. The grazing season is now shorter, which means cattle have to be fed with expensive imported feed, which increases costs and the carbon footprint of cattle production. Feed is being shipped from the other side of the world to feed cattle that must now be housed in sheds from early autumn to late spring when they would have grazed outdoors during much of this period in the past. This change is having a major impact on farm income and a negative impact on the environment.

Doing nothing is no longer an option. We cannot limit our battle against climate change to campaigning for and highlighting the plight of far off peoples. Climate change is affecting the entire island. Each one of us has a responsibility to act and we all have a part to play, whether big or small, because we must all be part of the solution.

As legislators, we have a unique role and must set ourselves the task of drafting and implementing legislation that brings us into line with agreed EU targets. It is ironic that the Minister currently holds the chairmanship of the EU Environment Council given that his long-awaited climate change Bill has not yet seen the light of day. The programme for Government includes a cast iron guarantee to introduce climate change legislation - I checked the position again last week - but two years later the Minister has still not put pen to paper. If he has a Bill, it is one of the country's best kept secrets. The other day, the Minister contradicted me when I stated the roadmap published last year promised that the heads of a Bill would be published by the end of 2012. I waited until Christmas for them to be published and I have still not seen them.

In an attempt to spur the Government into action Deputy Catherine Murphy introduced this Bill and Sinn Féin published a climate change Bill last week. We have worked closely with and received public support from Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos, a coalition of 27 non-governmental organisations and campaign groups. Our Bill is comprehensive and based on legislation produced by the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security, of which several senior Ministers in the current Government were members. The Minster opposite, Deputy Phil Hogan, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, and the Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Dinny McGinley, were co-authors of the 2010 Bill and the then Opposition Deputy McGinley, who chaired the joint committee, stated the following in its introduction: "A year ago, in October 2009, the Joint Committee published a report on the case for climate change law and now, with the need for action on climate change ever more pressing, we have followed that with a draft Bill which we offer for consideration." Climate change legislation was considered extremely important at the time and is even more pressing in 2013 because the effects of climate change are being felt in every county, from Kildare and Kilkenny to Laois and Offaly, and across the world. The then Labour Party Deputy Liz McManus, who served as rapporteur for the joint committee, wrote the following in the forward to the committee's report on the Bill: "As the threat of global warming grows inexorably the case for a legislative response is compelling."

There is no reason the Government parties cannot support the Sinn Féin Bill. Unfortunately, as with many other issues, it appears that once the Deputies opposite were appointed to ministerial office, their electoral promises and the commitments they gave in the programme for Government started to slip down the agenda. Fine Gael and the Labour Party were clear on this matter in the programme for Government in which they promised "to publish a Climate Change Bill which will provide certainty surrounding government policy and provide a clear pathway for emissions reduction, in line with negotiated EU 2020 targets".

We welcomed this commitment, but it has not been fulfilled. Unfortunately, the Government has continued to hide from its commitment to introduce climate change legislation.

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