Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned for several reasons. First of all we must leave four fifths of the fossil fuels underground. I am concerned that the only investments being made by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment are in fossil fuel scholarships rather than clean energy scholarships and that it is measuring nature so that those industries can go out and help to destroy nature. The Minister of State has still not answered the key question I have asked on three occasions. Will he answer it on the third time? On the basis of the ObSERVE programme, if there are certain areas where there are very large populations or where it is important for that natural world, will he exclude those areas from any future gas and oil exploration? Or is this just to measure what is there so when we ruin it with further exploration we will know what has gone?

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