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

I will speak to amendment No. 28 in my name and that of other Deputies. It is important we do this quickly. We have reached a carbon cliff because of the lost years when we did not do what we should have been doing, when we did not take our responsibility seriously and when we kept damaging the environment and putting ourselves in a situation for which we will pay in the future, not just environmentally but also in the way of carbon credits. This will result in a cost to the public purse and to the taxpayer.

A period of six months is adequate because the preparatory work has been done and everybody knows this is coming, including officials in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. We have known it was coming for years but have put off dealing with it and procrastinated, delayed and dilly-dallied. The committee report was published two years and two months ago so there has been substantial time to deal with this matter in the interim. It is important that this is done. The Government gave a commitment to do it in the lifetime of the Parliament but there is a month or six months left, depending on who one listens to, so it is important we do it quickly. If the Government does it within six months and there is a spring election, it will go to the electorate with these measures in place. It is a positive message to sell and one on which our party would agree on if the Government did it.

The move to 18 months is welcome but perhaps the Government should shorten that. I suggest it should go a step further. If it cannot go to six months, it should go to 12 months because a huge amount of time was lost when we ignored the problem, delayed in respect of it, danced around it and failed to deal with it. We can no longer postpone taking action in respect of this problem. We have seen the effects, not just in coastal communities but, over a couple of summers, even on dry land in places such as in County Kildare, and it does not get much drier than that. I witnessed a combine harvester with tracks on it trying to cut and harvest corn in fields that had never flooded before.

Climate change is with us and one could say our little spot of land would not make a difference to the globe as a whole but we cannot take that attitude. We are part of the problem and we have to be part of the solution. It is important we do it quickly and we have an opportunity to do that. There is a party political opportunity for those in government in having it wrapped up before going to the country next spring - if they wait until then - and I urge them to do it.

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