Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has not answered the question in so far as it applies to Ireland and this State's ability to meet its targets, to take climate change seriously and do something about it. Does the Minister accept that we are failing disastrously? Carbon emissions are increasing. They have increased from 56 million tonnes of carbon during the 1990s to almost 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent now, so it is worsening. The EPA says Ireland faces significant fines and that we are nowhere near meeting our targets. We can forget about the 20% target, as it says we would be lucky to get as much as a 4%, 5% or 6% reduction in emissions. Friends of the Earth says that we are denial.

It is clear what is happening. I raised the matter of forestry recently. We are pathetically underperforming in our afforestation programme. We are nowhere close to targets we had in the past. Our public transport is very expensive. We have some of the lowest levels of subsidy in Europe and there has been no serious reduction in car use because we are not doing anything to significantly reduce the cost of public transport and improve its quality. We are still awarding licences for gas and oil exploration. The renewable energy scheme appears focused on big corporations and is not available to small businesses and communities. Is it not the case that we are failing?

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