Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I represent an urban constituency but I come from a rural part of Dublin and I know many of these issues going back to my childhood. The reality is that the Government had an opportunity in budget 2019 to set out what it would do. Why did we not have the whole of Government action plan then, with specific tasks for each Department? The Departments would then come back to the Minister with respect to those tasks and he could quantify the type of funding that would be necessary. If a cost benefit analysis of this is done and we were to take the actions we need to take, it would be far cheaper than the European Commission asking us to pay €500 million or €600 million, an amount that would fund an extraordinary level of developments in health, housing or whatever. The Minister has a very poor record on this matter in government. I am a member of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight. We need to have ex anteassessments done of what the Minister wants each Department to achieve next year. That is the reality. The Minister, Deputy Bruton, has moved into the Department with responsibility for climate action and suddenly he announced this plan but we want to see it fleshed out and to identify from where the money is coming.

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