Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like to hear from the Minister, Deputy Zappone, when she has the opportunity to come before the House, whether it is the case that these new thresholds will not apply until 2020. If that is the case we are being sold a pup with regard to creating an expectation. Thousands of families will assume they will benefit from increased subsidies but in reality they will not see the benefit of this for more than 12 months. If this is the new way of budgeting for the year and how the House does its budgets, we are not being fooled. We take great umbrage at the fact. If the Government is trying to sell us some smoke and mirrors at this stage of the process we will interrogate the figures to the nth degree. These are the political times in which we live. People will not be fooled. People will immediately realise that if the Government were serious about creating an affordable childcare scheme the one thing it would have had up and running at this stage is an IT architecture to give a portal to parents who are to benefit from the schemes. That has not even been set up. We need to hear from the Minister, Deputy Zappone, just exactly what is going on with regard to the announcements made by the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, yesterday and made by her today.

On the issue of climate change, it is astounding that in the week when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has told us there is a narrow window of opportunity to keep global warming within 1.5° Celsius and that to avail of this opportunity we have to act now, the Government did not do anything in terms of a set of measures that would seek to decarbonise further the economy. In the Minister of Finance's speech, where he referred to climate change, what he actually ended up doing was stating he would invest more than €164 million in targeted measures to achieve Ireland's energy efficiency and renewable energy objectives in line with the Government's own mitigation plan.

In the same breath he announced €103.5 million for improvements in grant and premium rates for planting forests. There is a school of thought that carbon sinks through more forests are the way to go. It is one solution that we acknowledge. He would also introduce a beef environmental efficiency pilot scheme to further improve efficiency in beef production.

I represent an agricultural heartland and I must weigh up the local considerations we all have in representing all our constituents equally. The International Panel on Climate Change tells us there will be an existential crisis for humanity if we see increases of 5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100. I will not be too verbose about that but the Minister came here only to announce a scheme relating to better environmental efficiency for beef production, along with an additional €70 million for the targeted agricultural modernisation schemes, TAMS. There was plenty of opportunity through diverting money from the so-called rainy day fund to ensure we could decarbonise the economy in a way that could bring many choices, including transport, households and buildings. There could have been any number of imaginative schemes, and the point is there was a lack of imagination. The Government did not use its opportunity with increased resources to do that. I could go on but my time has expired.

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