Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

They spent hours and hours in there. I was not there, but I saw some of it. I would hardly recognise this Bill as having being influenced by that committee debate. It is a terrible shame. The failure of the Bill to set a numeric target for future emissions reductions is a fundamental flaw because it means there is little concrete direction for the coming years.

Recently, Finland, Denmark and France set targets. Under law, Denmark's is 40% by 2020, double the Europe 2020 target. France's energy transition Bill seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and 75% by 2050. They may not meet their targets, but at least they are working towards them through their sectoral areas, for example, transport, and retrofitting.

The independence of the climate change advisory council is one of the most disappointing for all of the groups involved in Stop Climate Chaos. The necessary independence does not exist. The Minister should revert on the next Stage with amendments to address this point.

Climate justice is a major issue. People believed that the Government could link in with it and provide inclusion.

The Bill is disappointing. The Minister's introduction did not encourage me to believe that he would take these concerns on board or introduce the necessary amendments that were highlighted during the pre-scrutiny stage by Members of all groups. The mood among them was that they were actually creating something workable, but the Minister will not follow suit. That will be a shame and he will have to deal with it in his own way over the coming decades in which Ireland has not played the key role it should have by setting targets now.

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