Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's attitude to these amendments sums up why the political system is so discredited and why people are so alienated from it. I am surprised he is shaking his head because the language the Government parties used when they were elected about democratic revolution was used precisely because they knew that the slaughtering the previous Government received at the polls was at least in part due to enormous disaffection and alienation from the political system and the political establishment, which continues to exist. The Government parties felt the need to use that language because they knew that is what the people wanted. They want more accountability, a more participatory democracy and more oversight of what governments do regarding the decisions that affect them. A democracy which is just about an election every five years with the Government going off to do what the hell it likes in the interim is discredited. It needs to change and this was acknowledged in the programme for Government, but like so many other proposals, the Government parties are busily abandoning it.

In this case, it is abandoning it on an issue that is of vital importance for the survival of the planet, namely, that of climate change. All that is being asked in these amendments is that the effectiveness of the national mitigation plan to do with reducing CO2 emissions, and the measures that will be taken to do that, would be scrutinised by the Houses of the Oireachtas and not simply spun by the Government of the day in whatever way it feels like so doing. That is extremely important because, as I said, many of these announcements and plans are being made about crucial issues such as housing and capital investment. We get the public relations, the press release and the photo opportunity but we do not get an opportunity to scrutinise the detail. However, that is the point of democracy. That is the point of this House and it is what the people are demanding. The Minister is flying in the face of the demands of the people of this country for real democratic, thoroughgoing reform. He is reverting to type in terms of the way a discredited political establishment has done its business for far too long. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister on this. There is nothing at stake in accepting these amendments except reform of, and improvement in, democracy, which would require that the scrutiny of our efforts to deal with climate change would be hardwired into the political system. That is what we are asking for.

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