Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last year's capital plan was widely viewed as just another example of the repackaging of existing plans which so defined the last Government. The Cabinet committee that is the subject matter of this discussion is reviewing this because we need urgent and ambitious plans to address our infrastructure. There was an announcement during the week that, for example, the Macroom bypass, the N28 and other road projects will now not be completed until 2022. I know there has been a tendency in recent times that pre-election promises tend to be two-election promises; in other words, they are never meant to be implemented in the immediate aftermath of the election but will come on stream after the following election. Is it envisaged that a revised capital investment plan be produced this year? There is a need for strategically important investment to include broadband, road infrastructure and other issues.

In terms of the climate change aspect of this committee, not enough has been made of the dramatic news in recent weeks about the hole in the ozone layer narrowing and closing. The great story there is that it illustrates corrective action works. One of the great difficulties for climate change has been a lack of acceptance of the phenomenon by key policy-makers and political leaders for too long and a sense that there is nothing we can do, that it is inevitable and so on. The example of what is happening to the ozone layer and the corrective action, legislatively and that parliaments and governments around the world have taken, has apparently had a very significant impact, according to scientists. There is a need for the Government to drive that message home in a national programme in terms of climate change so that we get the whole of society to embrace the idea of action to mitigate the impact of climate change.

This is already happening, as the Taoiseach is aware, globally, in Africa. We talk about migration in the context of the Syrian conflict but there will also be very significant migration out of Africa because of climate change. There therefore needs to be an understanding of this among our society. It was a missed opportunity by many governments - not just our own - and states and societies not to use that example of what is happening to the ozone layer as a catalyst for greater urgency and momentum behind climate change action.

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