Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's response sums it up. The Cabinet Committee on Climate Change and the Green Economy has met only once in 12 months. The last time this committee met was on 5 November 2012, over a year ago. In the meantime, we have had major work by the UN and the climate change panel and definitive conclusions in terms of human responsibility for a dramatically changing planet, with grave consequences for agriculture, food production and so on. The impact of climate change already being felt in many countries across the globe is devastating. We have seen changes in climate, drought in Africa, wars arising from drought and so forth.

In the Irish context, much as I regret to say it, it seems the Government will be known as the one that cared least about climate change in recent times. There is no sense that the Government has a climate change agenda. It is as if this is something we can dismiss and put to one side. This is reflected in the Climate Change Bill. The failure to include strategic targets for 2050 is a further exposure of failure on the part of the Minister, Deputy Hogan, to rise to the challenge of climate change. I accept the fact that climate change is a challenging issue, but the fact the committee has only met once speaks for itself.

People have roundly condemned the Climate Change Bill, but I do not know whether the committee will meet to discuss it again. The previous Government published a far more ambitious Bill, into which many people had an input, in 2010. When the Labour Party was in opposition in 2009, it produced legislation with clear targets and argued strongly for legislation that would include objectives, targets and goals.

Will the Taoiseach confirm that the committee will meet far more often in the coming 12 months and that the Government will become far more engaged than it has been with the climate change agenda? An attempt has been made to demonise people involved in the climate change and green agenda generally in the past 12 to 15 months, to which the Government has been a party, as has the Minister. The fact that the committee has met only once speaks volumes for the Government's lack of commitment to tackling this very serious issue.

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