Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State but he may as well have just copied and pasted the last answer he gave in February. He may have done so as I have just looked back at the transcript. Things have changed and at the time, the Minister of State told us the Bill was useless and would need a money message. It is not at all useless and it does not need a money message, which is why we are scrutinising the Bill on 3 July and 10 July.

Apart from the machinations of how the committee might deal with this, there is a movement across the globe to ban offshore exploration for oil. These are countries that may not be significant oil producers but nevertheless there is a growing impact. France, Costa Rica, Belize and New Zealand have all banned offshore oil and gas exploration. This Bill will pass because of the cross-party support it has received and Ireland will make no small or insignificant contribution to such action. Those measures are about reducing CO2 emissions and really tackling climate change in a serious way.

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