Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to pick up on another strand of the work of the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, in respect of the programme for Government. The fight against climate change was relegated by the previous Government and there has been little more than lip service since. When Commissioner Phil Hogan was a Minister, he led the charge when Fine Gael came out of the 2011 election and climate change policy went backwards. I was interested to hear yesterday on the "Six One" news the Minister, Deputy Bruton, say he will announce an action plan for climate change. This is very worrying because we all know that when the Government says it will have an action plan for something, it means more claims of action rather than any reality of action. What the Taoiseach said earlier is extraordinary. He said we will not make our 2020 targets but will make our targets for 2030. He is getting fairly benign media treatment on this issue because it is an extraordinary story of failure. I understand there was a memo before Cabinet this morning about the purchase of carbon allowances. They will cost somewhere between €96 million and €500 million, perhaps on the lower end of that scale - I do not know. Perhaps the Taoiseach could enlighten the House as to how much it will cost the State to pay fines to buy carbon credits in order that we can make some effort to meet our targets for 2020.

The Taoiseach is in a position to outline how much he thinks can be afforded in tax giveaways for the next five years, so surely he or the Government has some idea as to how much it will cost to purchase carbon credits or pay the fines we may face as a result of our failure to meet our climate change targets by 2020. That failure is dramatic. Instead of going downwards, our carbon emissions are going upwards in every sector, from transport right across. This represents a monumental failure on the Government's part. It is not good enough to state we will get there by 2030. That is 12 years away, when it will be the next generation's issue.

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