Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The response to everything we have raised in terms of projections and targets is that we do not need these things in Ireland because we are already the subject of EU targets. Of course, that is to be completely blind to the reality that, while we may be subject to those targets, we are also on target to miss them and be well off the radar in terms of achieving them in any meaningful way by 2020. This means the Irish taxpayer will be the subject of massive fines, apart from the fact Irish and world humanity is going to be jeopardised by a failure to come to terms with these issues.

As it stands, the Bill does not require the national mitigation plan to achieve anything - that is the reality. What this amendment seeks is that it would be a requirement in the plan to include projected national emissions as a goal. I do not believe that is unreasonable; in fact, it makes perfect logical sense. For the Government to refuse to take this into account shows the same type of mentality we had on the earlier amendment, when the Minister was quite happy for the Government of the day to railroad through whatever was put forward and undermine participative democracy in this House.

Deputy Wallace is correct. We are dealing here with very serious issues and, in some ways, with the future of humanity. Even those at the higher levels or elements of the capitalist system are coming to grasp that our world is jeopardised by our inability to deal with this. The problem is that while we are talking one thing, the reality of what we are delivering is quite the opposite. We need to be much more radical in our thinking and much more definitive in the plan we put forward. There are some allusions to a way forward in the Bill before us but no meat and no substance. When we weigh up the Bill with all of the other actions the Government has stood over, the reality is that we know this country, far from reaching its targets, is moving further from achieving those targets.

That is why we say austerity is contributing to this. In fairness, the group in Canada headed up by Naomi Klein have put forward the Leap Manifesto, which is based on tackling climate change in a serious way. That manifesto, which was put to public representatives, states that austerity itself is a fossilised form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth. What they mean is that systematically attacking low carbon sectors like education and health care, as the Government has done, starving public transport and forcing reckless energy privatisation demonstrates a fossilised form of thinking which is a threat to life on earth. We can draw parallels here in our system.

The manifesto refers to needing the money for that great transformation in how society is ordered, and we need the right policies to achieve that. Ending fossil fuel subsidies, a financial transactions tax, increased resource royalties, higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, a progressive carbon tax and cuts to military spending - all of these measures are real "producer pays" measures which could tackle the emissions we are seeking to deal with. Instead, we have a waffly, fluffy Bill that does not actually set out to achieve anything and, meanwhile, other policies are being implemented which ensure we will not reach our targets and that we are actually heading in the opposite direction.

I believe this amendment is worthy and should be included because it measures what we should be doing and, in some way, anchors this plan to some form of reality, which would then have an impact on other aspects of Government policy.

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