Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all those who made valuable contributions here this afternoon, including the Ministers of State, Deputies, Ó Ríordáin and Kevin Humphreys. I thank them for the insightful contributions. Indeed, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, before he was a Minister of State, was a member of the committee and worked hard in the background, along with myself and others, to bring about the report. We spent many long days, in committee and elsewhere, meeting the different stakeholders and interest groups to bring about this important piece of work.

As I have stated earlier, this is one of the key issues facing the world today and it is vitally important that we formulate the necessary policy and legislation to help Ireland move to a low carbon and environmentally sustainable economy and society. This report represents a culmination of lengthy and wide-ranging consultations on climate legislation.

As a committee, we were concerned about Ireland's ability to meet its targets and the direct economic cost of not doing so. That is why we listened carefully to the evidence presented to us and why we drew the Minister's attention specifically to the ideas and suggestions put forward by witnesses.

I can safely say that the report provides a sound basis for ensuring that we strike the right balance between ambition and practicality. It contains both realistic and practical recommendations ensuring timely and effective implementation on our ambitious climate change policies. The report aims to copperfasten and streamline existing administrative work on reaching our mitigation targets in a way that is coherent across the whole of Government and transparent for all to see.

I would encourage the Minister to consider the appropriateness of each and all of the recommendations and to include those which he believes are beneficial in the next Stage of the Bill. I hope the Minister is favourably disposed to looking at the constructive and well thought-out amendments that no doubt will be put forward by Members who spoke here this afternoon.

I can assure everyone here today, having heard all the evidence and having heard the contributions of various Members, that there will be no shortage of proposed amendments to the Bill when we reach Committee Stage.

One of the issues I want to touch on is this one about there being no targets. This is untrue. If people took the time to go to the committee hearings while they were going on, if they took the time to read the submissions or, better still, if they took the time to read the report, they would know this. Ireland is already subject to legally binding mitigation targets up to the year 2020 as part of the European Union legislation, and further mitigation targets up to 2030 are currently being negotiated. This process of target-setting under the auspices of the EU will likely continue up to the year 2050. Accordingly, providing targets in the report would be both redundant and would potentially interfere with the binding targets set under European Union legislation by which we are legally bound. Moreover, our long-term vision for targets for low carbon transition has already been set out in the Government-approved national climate policy position of April 2014. In other words, there is no need to include further targets in the report.

There was a comment, by Deputy Kirk, that we are kicking the can down the road. There is no kicking of the can down the road. The recently launched Bill will be one of the most important Bills to come before the Houses of the Oireachtas, this year and for years to come. It will make Ireland a progressive minority in the European Union because Ireland will be one of five member states to introduce climate change legislation. Only four other EU member states have adopted climate change legislation so far. Ireland will be one of the first EU countries to put a legal obligation on its Government to develop policies to plan for existing and future climate change.

Over the past couple of years, but particularly during the process of compiling the report when the committee held public hearings, I was struck by the contributions of Deputies Catherine Murphy and Stanley. They attended all of the meetings, of which there were many on non-sitting days during a fine summer in the basement of Leinster House - I could think of many other places to be. Theirs were thought-out contributions. We met a considerable variety of NGOs, academics, scientists, employers' bodies, the IFA and other interest groups, and they all made well-researched thorough, insightful and intelligent contributions to our proceedings. Information was gathered through the public hearings and the many written submissions that we received. I was looking through them as some of the contributions were being made. We had contributions from: Professor Peadar Kirby from University of Limerick, UL, Brian Ó Gallachóir, University College Cork, UCC, and the Irish Corporate Leaders on Climate Change, that is, Bord Gáis, Bord na Móna, Diageo, KPMG, NTR, Siemens, Sodexo and Vodafone. We also had contributions from many private individuals, and from Irish Dairy Industries, Food and Drink Industries, Meat Industry Ireland, Trócaire, Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, BirdWatch Ireland, Stop Climate Chaos, the Electricity Association of Ireland, the Environmental Pillar, An Taisce, Professor Ray Bates from National University of Ireland, NUI, Dublin, Friends of the Earth and Ceartas – Irish Lawyers for Human Rights and the Institute for International and European Affairs. At all of those different meetings, these witnesses came in and laid out their stall, and they took the time to research the matter and to make those contributions. Those who did not get a chance to do so made submissions online.

There were a couple of Members here who read scripts. Deputy Kirk read a script and so did Deputy Wallace. It is a pity they did not take the time to come down to the basement when we were holding those public hearings to make their submissions. That is the difficulty of reading out a script. Sometimes one will read it out blindly. That is what points to the contrast in the contributions this morning made by members of the committee who took the time to do that.

I would also say to those who have criticised or singled out any particular organisation which made contributions to take the time to read its submission, read the Official Report of the committee - it is all online, transparent and in black and white - and then go to the report. Clearly, some never read or saw the report of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht, of the 31st Dáil and 24th Seanad, "Report on the Outline Heads of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill 2013", of November 2013. It is worth reading. Those who will take the time to do that would have a more informed and better contribution, and have a better basis on which to make that contribution.

I thank all of those who contributed to a fine volume of work. In the coming weeks, the committee will spend more hours down in the basement of Leinster House amending that legislation as its members see fit. I hope that the political will that has inspired this report will be reflected there by Government. I hope the Minister will be favourably disposed to looking at amendments from those who have genuine concerns on this Bill which is reflected in their attendance at committees and their contribution to the issue, and not in coming in here criticising for criticism's sake.

As I stated in my earlier contribution, this commitment was in the Labour Party manifesto. This commitment found its way into the programme for Government. It is difficult to take criticism from a member of a party that did not bother its behind to do anything about it in four years of Government, despite the junior party bleating continually about climate change.

People who supported that Administration are in no position to criticise either the report or the climate legislation. This is a red letter day for climate action in this country. It deserves to be treated with the integrity and the diligence that has been reflected by the vast majority of those who made the time to attend, to contribute and to develop this fine volume of work. I look forward to the next few weeks. I want to express my sincere appreciation to those who made constructive contributions on the subject, not just this afternoon, but for the last two or three years. I advise the Johnny-come-latelies, those who have only just discovered there is climate change when they saw the list of legislation published for this term, that it is worth taking an informed view on this important topic.

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