Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In the absence of the Taoiseach, my question is to the Minister, Deputy Bruton. The climate forum held last Friday at Croke Park was very welcome, until the moment everyone present realised that while the Government was stating it wanted to be a champion of dealing with climate change, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment had just issued another frontier oil exploration licence in distant Atlantic waters. The Government cannot do this while in the same breath stating it is a champion of dealing with climate change. Yesterday, at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment, we had yet another debate on Deputy Bríd Smith's climate emergency Bill. The Government is using amazing Kafkaesque techniques to put the Bill in limbo. There is the amazingly weird technocratic issue of whether there is a report of the committee. Because of the inability to decide, the the Bill is going nowhere, which is a disgraceful abuse of the power of the Parliament to manage legislation. One of the ways to unlock the issue, apart from getting into an incredibly legally dense row about the powers of Parliament, is for the Minister to allow a debate on the fundamental issue of climate change. Are we with the global environmental community in stating we must keep fossil fuels in the ground or will we keep playing on both sides and be hypocritical in what we are doing?

See this speech in context