Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is absolutely right and proper that Ireland should pursue an ethical investment programme in respect of State investments held on behalf of the people of Ireland.

Any time people have been consulted, including at the Citizens' Assembly, they have indicated clearly that they want an ethical investment programme. I thank Deputy Pringle for bringing forward his legislation and Trócaire, as well as all the people working for it, for supporting the Bill and contacting our offices. We have done this before, of course. As a country we do not invest in guns or military equipment. As has been mentioned, we divested from investments relating to cigarettes and other products that could cause harm to people around the world.

With regard to the harm done to people around the world, there can be no doubt that climate change has done great harm to tens of millions of people in vast areas, particularly in Africa and Asia. Today an exhibition will be launched by Uachtarán na hÉireann in Kilmainham Gaol celebrating the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth. When Mr. Mandela got out of jail, something he said continuously to young people in supporting education in particular concerned how we treat our planet and hold it in trust. He indicated we do this not for ourselves but for future generations. It is important to signal today that we favour decarbonisation of the economy in our own and other interests. We know about the water shortages we are currently experiencing.

I worked on many occasions alongside Trócaire in Africa in the 1980s when I was with the Irish development programme in Tanzania for three years. Climate change was beginning to become evident then and significant parts of the east and west Tanzania were becoming desertified and losing tree cover because of what was happening with the planet's climate. I went back to Tanzania last year and it broke my heart to see how much climate change had impact negatively on this vast country in east Africa. Climate change has a particular impact on women and children there. In Africa, women their children in rural areas must fetch water and bring it home. They must also procure fuel by cutting trees and making charcoal. By and large, it is the only way to get fuel for cooking, particularly among poor families. Again, Trócaire is one of the organisations that has done much work worldwide trying to improve the lot of poor women and families in Africa and make their lives a little easier.

The burden of climate change falls on the poorest families and people in Africa. Along with our development aid programme, as a country we should ensure the policies we pursue with institutions like the NTMA are entirely consistent with what people in Ireland would like to see happening for the betterment of families and individual women, children and men in Africa.

Ironically, today is also when US President Trump, that great climate change denier, visits our neighbours in the UK. He is a disruptive force with respect to climate change as he basically argues that it is not happening. I hope during his presidency he will get the opportunity to visit some of the different areas in Africa where livelihoods are being devastated by the impact of climate change. I am pleased that currently institutions such as the World Bank and its president, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, are positively pursuing solutions to climate change and education so that people can adapt their own countries as to how best to deal with this enormous difficulty, which has an impact on water and forestry. There are many species in Ireland suffering the impact of climate change. This problem also has an enormous effect on household costs, particularly in Africa, where women are responsible for water, fuel and the land.

I congratulate Deputy Pringle again on the Bill, which we support. Former President, Mary Robinson, has worked with people like Nelson Mandela, when he was alive, to try to change the world view on this. Just as with the industrial revolution there was a shift and, along with revolutions involving information technology and social media, there will be another shift if we can get enough people with goodwill to come together and agree that we should conserve water and our planet, and deal with climate change. If that happens, we will bequeath a better world to the young people of today.

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