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

We need to restore our climate reputation as a country, not just because we are facing €500 million in fines every year but because moving from worst in class to best in class, which is possible, would make this country better in many ways. The Dáil has a role to play. We should pass Deputy Pringle's divestment Bill, which will be up for discussion in two weeks. Similarly, we should pass the Green Party's Waste Reduction Bill 2017 which would help us to deliver a circular economy. We should pass Deputy Bríd Smith's climate crisis Bill, which would keep those fossil fuels in the ground. Goldman Sachs, Coca-Cola and ExxonMobil would not like that, but the Irish people are behind it and want to see it happen. We have the numbers in the Dáil. The only problem is Fine Gael. Fine Gael is the climate laggard, not the Irish people, and it needs to change.

The problem is that this change is greater than anything that the former Taoiseach, Mr. Seán Lemass, and Dr. T.K. Whitaker tried to do in the late 1950s and we have no one on Merrion Street willing to show such leadership now. That is what the Climate Action Network report and Citizens' Assembly said, and they were right. It is the Government that is in the dock.

To tackle this problem, we should think global and act local, which is an old green adage. The new economic model will be dependent on building healthy communities where quality housing is within walking or cycling distance of local services. To do that, we need strong local government, which means putting to the people next May the question of having directly elected mayors in every city. I have someone in mind, a modern Whitaker, who could lead Limerick into becoming a climate treaty city. I have someone in mind who would set Cork free from Dublin rule. I have someone in mind who could lead Galway in setting the west awake and someone who could make Waterford the true capital of the south east. In Dublin, we need a mayor to solve our terrible transport and housing crises. The Ministers for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, are not solving them.

We need to say to the St. Michael's estate team that we will go the cost rental route. We need to stop Transport Infrastructure Ireland building ever larger motorways into Dublin and bringing more cars in, resulting in us having to dig up our front gardens when what we should be doing is using those engineers to build greenways everywhere and turn Dublin into what it should be, namely, a great garden city.

The same applies in rural Ireland. We need a national land use plan that treats the whole country as a national park rather than the illegal dumping ground we saw last night. That is necessary if we are to plant 20,000 ha of new forestry and create a national rainforest. To make all of this happen, the Oireachtas committee on climate change that we are about to establish needs to work. It must start in September, finish by the end of the year and have the seven Secretaries General attend on Wednesday afternoons in October and November.

It must build a new national energy and climate plan, which we have to do for Europe, because the Government's current plan does not work. I do not believe it. Internationally, no one believes it. It needs to change. Is the Taoiseach willing to change or is Fine Gael sticking with the status quowith fossil fuels and with turning Ireland's reputation brown rather than the green it should be? We need to be orange and green in reality, not just as marketing spin.

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