Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that. The floods which hit Donegal in late August, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will know, were devastating. The report I read - I am not even sure if it was the final report - indicated 47 households registered as being displaced and 300 issues relating to the road network, ranging from extensive structural damage to bridges to stretches of rural roads being completely washed away.

The motion refers to the challenge of climate change and increasingly volatile weather patterns. The storms in Donegal may have occurred with or without climate change, but it is a fact there has been a fourfold increase in the number of severe storms globally since 1970. The warmer atmosphere is a contributory factor, as is the warmer water evaporating more easily. It is not just the storms but also other extreme weather events such as we saw with the heatwave in Europe in July.

One hundred companies have been responsible for 70% of global gas emissions since 1988.

A mere 25 companies are responsible for more than 50% of the global gas emissions since 1988. In the White House today, the world's number one capitalist politician, Donald J. Trump, a climate change denier, has appointed as the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency another climate change denier.

It is not just the crazy element of world capitalism that is contributing massively to the climate change crisis. Investment in renewables peaked at $257 billion in the year 2011 and it has fallen by 23% since, in particular in countries such as Germany, where there has been a 56% decline, and in Italy, where there has been a 75% decline. Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Timesin December of last year, said the Paris Agreement is far more than the world could have reasonably expected a year or two ago but, as it stands, it will at best slow the pace at which the world reaches a possible disaster. All these examples show that the international capitalist system - both the Trump wing, on the one hand, and the more Christian democratic or social democratic wing, on the other - is contributing massively to this climate change crisis. Naomi Klein, one of the foremost commentators on this issue internationally, in her recent book, This Changes Everything, talking of capitalism, said, "If we want to avoid climate change, we need system change". We agree with that point entirely.

How does this reflect itself in Ireland? The level of neglect from this Government and from the political establishment on the climate change crisis as it pertains in this country is astounding. Joseph Curtin from the Institute of International and European Affairs talks about the level of fines the Irish State could receive for not meeting targets on renewable energy and emissions. He talks in terms of fines of €610 million for missing targets by 2020 and, potentially, of up to €5.5 billion for missing targets up to the year 2030. The way in which agriculture is organised in this country is one major factor and transport is another. Again, what has been the role of successive Governments led by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on this issue? If they were to take a serious approach towards meeting the climate change challenge, surely a very basic thing they would do is put in place massive improvements in the public transport system to make it more attractive as an alternative to the car. Yet, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus have all had their public service obligation payments slashed since 2008 - they have not even risen back to 2008 levels yet and, in the case of Iarnród Éireann, the payments have been cut nearly in half. We say that those cuts must be fully reversed and that even when they have been reversed, there should be a doubling of expenditure on public transport.

Imaginative and bold policies to combat climate change must be introduced. For example, in 1981 the Greater London Council introduced its Fares Fair policy whereby fares were cut by some 30% and there was a massive increase in the numbers using public transport and the tube. London Transport said that the benefits outweighed the costs by a ratio of more than two to one. There needs to be a debate internationally about the idea of treating public transport in the way that education and health are meant to be organised but are actually not - that is, free at the point of use, with no charge. There should be an international debate on that but, at the very least, as an immediate short-term step, there should be a Fares Fair policy, slashing fares and making public transport more attractive as an alternative to the car.

I want to conclude on a point I would particularly like to address to the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran, namely, the question of flood defences for 2016-2021 in the Cork area. Some €140 million of the €430 million is being set aside for the flood defences in Cork, which are to be concentrated in the city centre in raising the quay walls, with 46 pumping stations. A major increase in the discharge levels at the Inniscarra dam, if necessary, would be considered safe alongside that. Those proposals have been critiqued and, in my opinion, critiqued in a very professional and serious way by the Save Cork City group. Among their supporters is Professor Robert Devoy of UCC, who is a leading figure on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Professor Devoy and his colleagues on Save Cork City say that the flood defence plans are based on a ten-year-old study of the flood tide risks and do not take sufficient account of the climate change challenge that Cork will meet. He believes we need to factor in sea level rises of at least 1 m, which I believe is quite a conservative figure and I have looked at his argumentation, and also that a tidal barrier will be necessary within the next couple of decades at least. The group argues, persuasively in my opinion, that we should factor in the tidal barrier now. It will have to be built sooner or later but if it is done now, and combined with upriver anti-flooding measures and increasing the capacity of the Inniscarra dam, it represents a more effective and certainly more people-friendly proposal than the one the OPW has advanced. The OPW counterargument is that it is expensive and would cost between €450 million and €1 billion. If that is what it takes to provide proper flood defences for the city that will not be out of date because of climate change relatively quickly, then that is what needs to be done. However, I believe the OPW has come to this figure rather quickly and perhaps is using it to justify its position as opposed to really objectively analysing it. I would support the call for an independent analysis of what a tidal barrier would genuinely cost in Cork. I believe it could and should be part of an alternative to the current proposals.

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