Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate. There are many issues on which we could speak in the context of the Bill. I still feel we have not had a proper debate on energy security in this country. Neither have we had a proper debate on fracking or nuclear energy. It is an appropriate time for us to embark on such debates and to look to the future in terms of where we are going with those important issues.

In so far as the Bill is concerned, I will stick to the points in the legislation for this debate. To say the Bill only has vague aspirations, as members of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party claim, is complete nonsense. They did not prioritise the legislation when they were in government and so it was not adopted and they failed. One could ask whether that coalition could have done better. It is a historical fact that they did worse. The Green Party’s central piece of legislation, its reason for being in government, was introduced when the Green Party had already announced it was leaving Government and when it knew its legislation could not get through the Seanad because Fianna Fáil did not support it. The Bill arrived too late and had no chance of being adopted. It was dead on arrival. When I hear the Green Party and the Fianna Fáil Party giving out about the legislation we have now I think it is rank hypocrisy. It really angers me, as someone who has cared about environmental issues since I was first elected to Dublin City Council. When I was young I was a member of Greenpeace. I had the pencil case when I was in school. It is something a lot of us care about and if we are going to have a debate on the environment and the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill let us have a constructive one and let us not try politically to point score over things Fianna Fáil and the Green Party could not do when they were in power. Their claim that they could have done more is absolute nonsense.

The Government is making a start with the Bill. It is taking a good initiative and that is a good thing but it is only a start. The important thing is to get something in place and then to build upon it. We must get the first piece of legislation in place so that we can aspire to the many other things people want to see. We have all met with very passionate and dedicated campaigners for climate justice and climate action. Many of us share their aspirations for what the legislation should contain, but we must recognise that we are starting in a good place. The establishment of the advisory council is a good thing. It will be able to produce its own reports. Previous legislation would not have allowed for that if it had been enacted. That is a positive step. We will have an action plan every five years, which is another positive. There will be an obligation on Ministers to report to the House every year on how they are making progress in their areas. That is a positive foundation for where we want to begin this conversation, but we must recognise as well that the legislation before us is not perfect.

In addition to building on the legislation once it is adopted, we can do a lot of work between now and the enactment of the Bill to make sure that it has as strong a foundation as possible for the coming years. I hope the Minister will approach the legislation in the proper spirit as we approach Committee Stage because if we look back to the report of the Oireachtas committee we see that most of what it recommended was not reflected in the legislation. One does not have to agree with everything a committee says, but if one does not listen to it, that begs the question of why we have such committees and why they do the work they do. It is important as we amend the Bill on Committee Stage that we try to find a better balance between what the Oireachtas committee recommended and what the Government wants, because that is the whole purpose of the system we have.

The issue of targets being built into the legislation beyond 2020 definitely needs to be better explained. If we do not build in targets up to 2050 and if it is standard practice in other European countries to do so then we need to know why we are not doing it here. There needs to be a really robust explanation. If there is a legitimate reason in terms of agriculture or sustainable food production, let us hear it and let us have the debate, but let us not be closed to the possibility until we have had a thorough debate on the Bill as it moves through the House.

There is no definition of low carbon in the Bill, which is incredible when one thinks about it. We have a definition of low carbon and the Bill is about low carbon so the Bill should contain a definition. That is something simple that we could agree to include as we come to Committee Stage. There is also no concept of climate justice in the Bill, which is remarkable, as one cannot talk about the subject without talking about climate justice. It is an important concept but it is a difficult thing to achieve. However, we will not get anywhere near achieving it if we are not even talking about it in primary legislation such as this. We need to work on that issue as well on Committee Stage.

We must ensure the expert advisory council is properly independent. If there are ways we can do that by adopting language relevant to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council then let us do that. It is also recognised that in setting up the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council we have created something imperfect there as well because although it has independence it can be ignored and is ignored. We do not want to risk the new expert advisory council becoming irrelevant. It needs to have some strong reporting mechanism into the Oireachtas so we can deliberate on its reports independently from the Government in an appropriate and short timeline so that before decisions are made we can discuss what the expert advisory council is talking about and so the Government can make decisions based on its advice and not, as we have had so many times in respect to important decisions, getting the best advice after decisions are made.

I welcome the fact the Bill is before the House but it does need to be improved. There is a lot of work to do but if we get rid of the politics and the hypocrisy and come with constructive solutions and engagement we will get a very strong foundation and recognise that it is just the beginning as we move forward to 2020 and then on to 2050.

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