James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As a member of the committee that has been debating this issue at length for the past two years and in more recent months has been debating the issue in detail and indeed the procedural issues which are at the heart of the motion before us, I know only too well the issues at play in the very important wider climate-action debate and the necessity for urgent action in what is an emergency situation.

Before I deal with the substance of the Bill, it is important to address the procedural and technical matters at the heart of tonight's motion. It is critical to address that procedural issue not just for this Bill but for many similar Bills before the House. New politics has promised much but delivered little. New politics promised and still contains an opportunity for a separation of powers to be manifested within these Houses. The notion, as reflected in our Constitution, that we have an Executive, a Judiciary and a Parliament all equal but opposite holding each other to account, which is a paramount principle of modern parliamentary democracy, is one that we should hold dear and execute, but unfortunately it has been honoured more in the breach than in the observance for most of the time of the State because we have had majority governments.

The job of the Legislature is to legislate, but with all-powerful executives with majorities in the House, that has not been the experience in many Dáileanna. This is the first Dáil where the numbers dictate that that can come into being. However, despite having an arithmetic that Private Members' Bills can and should be brought before the House, be debated and progressed on the basis of their policy merit rather than the colour of the banner under which they come, the experience over the past three years is that procedural devices and technical amendments are found to frustrate Bills. Given that the Government can no longer command a majority in the House, it cannot simply vote down a measure from the other side. Instead things like money messages, procedural matters, voting arrangements and technical reasons are put forward to delay and frustrate legislation.

I have four Private Members' Bills before the House at different Stages. There are many Bills in areas such as the education, environment and housing, and some Deputies have already mentioned other examples. It is as critical for those Bills as it is for this Bill that we address the procedural lacuna and send a message to Government that it is not good enough to delay and frustrate Private Members Bills ad infinitum. I commend the Deputies who introduced this motion to try to address the deadlock, which is not a good state of affairs.

On the substantive matter, I joined students from four schools outside Naas on Friday, 15 March. These young people came out to take a stand and make their views known that enough is enough. They wanted to plead with us to state their significant concern at the failure of many before their generation to protect and safeguard the planet they will inherit. I am very proud that my daughter, Niamh, was among those who travelled up by bus from Naas to Leinster House and stood outside the gates to be part of that protest movement, joining many hundreds of thousands if not millions of others worldwide on the same day as part of a growing movement because their generation understands this is a real climate emergency, probably the most significant issue to face our planet at this time. They are saying enough is enough.

We know from the academic literature that climate change is real. We understand that the increase in global temperature in the 150 or 200 years since the Industrial Revolution has been greater than in the previous two millennia. We know this is not sustainable. We know that the time for action is now. That has been borne out by many academic experts at the committee. We have engaged. The suggestion from some quarters that this is a rushed Bill is just untrue. The reality is we have had substantive policy debates at the committee with relevant national and international academic experts and we have had the technical argument.

Professor John Sweeney from NUI Maynooth pointed out that Ireland is 27th out of 28 EU countries in our performance on climate change. Behind us is only Poland, which has a natural dependency on coal given its geography. Second bottom of the league table is not where we want to be.

Even if we were to disregard the academic experts and to accept there are experts on both sides, which is the case, we only need to use the evidence of our own eyes. Last year we had the beast from the east which was followed just a few months later by the drought from the south. We had two of the most extreme weather situations in living memory - if not longer - occurring in the past 18 months. The proof is there for all of us to see. Our young people get it; the Opposition in this House gets it; it is time for the Government to get it and start to take these issues seriously and respond on them.

I pay tribute to my colleagues on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment. I pay tribute to Deputy Bríd Smith for proposing the Bill and all the members of the committee who have engaged in substantive debate on these issues. I also pay tribute to civic society groups such as Trócaire, Stop Climate Chaos, Friends of the Earth and many other advocacy groups that have played such a significant part in creating the context and raising the ante to highlight these issues and insist on getting them to this stage. That has been a crucial part of the momentum on this Bill and other Bills such as the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill we passed last summer. Momentum is building all the time.

Fianna Fáil will support the motion. It is important to uphold the principle that the Dáil cannot be frustrated by technical manoeuvres in committee and elsewhere. However, it is not a complete unconditional support. We will be introducing amendments in committee. We will look forward to robust substantive engagement on Committee Stage. We need to recognise some of the concerns raised relating to energy security, continuity of supply and external sources that may be less preferable to meet our energy needs. It is important that we manage that transition in a responsible way and recognise the unfortunate reality that there will be dependence on traditional fossil fuels for some time to come. We will be engaging in committee on those points.

If we were to repeat the mistakes of the past by continuing to look for something else before we put a lid on it, that is a self-fulfilling myth. If we keep on searching and even if we keep finding, we are generating and propagating an industry that will propel itself. If we are to continue to extract and explore, continue the cycle, create jobs and create a local economy based on that industry, it becomes a self-perpetuating myth and we never begin to make transition away from it. It is vital that we begin to make that transition now.

There is an entire false economy there. We can have a far more successful, sustainable, future-proofed, engineering-based technology solution of a green revolution if we embrace renewable energy and all the potential it offers.

That, in itself, is a major potential source of economic activity and growth in the regions where it is based and nationally by contributing to GDP.

A point was made regarding the potential loss to the State if we were to turn our backs on potential untapped reserves. Apart from the question as to where we should stop in the self-perpetuating cycle, there is also the opportunity cost of presented by a green revolution. A moot question, one which was discussed by the joint committee, is that if there are vast energy resources off our coast, why have we not found them in the past 50 years? The Corrib field, which is being wrapped up, has been loss-making and there have been a few other smaller finds. We have had 50 years to find these resources, which has been plenty of time. We will soon have to draw a line in the sand and say we have reached a point of no return. We have plenty of wind and wave energy off the Atlantic coast. Being on the edge of Europe, we have plenty of potential green energy. A small number of wind turbines off the Atlantic coast would generate 5 GW of energy, which would be enough to meet the country's energy needs. Other solutions include solar, biomass and wave energy. There are major untapped resources available. We need to change the mindset and culture and make the transition because we cannot sit on our hands and delay action forever.

The Fianna Fáil Party will support the motion proposing that the Bill proceed to the next Stage. It is important the House asserts itself on matters such as this and on similar Private Members' Bills. We have engaged substantively on the issue and we support the broad thrust of the Bill. We will table amendments on energy security and the time cycle for the transition phase and engage on those issues in committee. For now, however, I commend the Bill to the House.

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