Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their comments. I repeat that I believe the Government should be the approving body. I said that on Committee Stage and I am saying it again on Report Stage. The Government should be held accountable.

Deputy Wallace raised what is a wider debate as regards the differentiation between Government and the Houses of the Oireachtas and what goes on between elections. That is an issue for a wider issue. There is a very detailed list of what should be contained in an annual transition statement in section 14 and the detail outlined is quite helpful.

I heard a few comments around hardwiring and transparency. I think Deputies are forgetting the role of the advisory council in regard to this. There is an annual transition statement as part of this process and that statement will be debated in the Dáil with respect to mitigation and adaptation. Every Member of the House will have the opportunity, through that process, to make his or her views on this issue known. However, ultimately, the differentiation here, which I have made very clear on Committee Stage and now on Report Stage, is that the Government, quite rightly, should be held accountable and it should be the approving authority in this and in many other areas. Therefore, there is a fundamental difference of opinion here. It has nothing to do with a democratic deficit but has to do with the fact that the Government should be the approving authority on this issue. We have the advisory council in place, which we will be discussing at a later point in this debate, and its role is quite important too.

I made a number of commitments on Second and Committee Stages that I would consider various proposals, amendments and options that were put forward by Deputies. As Deputies will note, there are examples of my doing so through amendments I have brought in, based on the earlier discussions we have had. I said on numerous occasions that this was a wider debate that needed to take on board many of the comments made on Second and Committee Stages and a number of the Deputies opposite were present during those debates. They will note from the amendments that have been put forward by me that I have, in many cases, done so.

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