Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As the Taoiseach rightly said, NESC is an important forum where workers' representatives, through their trade unions, meet employers' groups and Government. Over the years it has done an amount of important background research work that informs national policy on areas like public housing and so on. The set of priorities the Taoiseach has indicated for NESC into the future includes, as Deputy McDonald said, the whole issue of climate change. I said recently at our party conference that this is one of the moral imperatives of our time. I genuinely believe that public opinion is light years ahead of opinion in this House, and certainly ahead of opinion within the Government, which talks the talk but, in terms of actually achieving the targets, is pitifully bad.

We will not meet our 2020 target and there is no rescuing that at this stage. However, it is also highly likely that we will not meet our 2030 target, which would be shameful, not only because it is an indictment of this generation and the whole issue of generational solidarity, but also because, economically, it is hugely damaging to us. We will have to make those changes to become a carbon neutral economy. The longer we delay the achievement of those targets, the more expensive it will be, because the fines that will accrue to the State will be extremely severe at that stage.

In terms of the work programme of NESC to inform the Government, will the Taoiseach make it clear in terms of national priorities on the economy and social policy that climate change is a priority, and that carbon reduction and carbon abatement will be practically implemented as a matter of urgency?

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