Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing time with Deputy Healy.

At the root of climate change is wealth inequality and exploitation of the natural resources of the earth. Fixing the issues that are caused by climate change in their entirety - damage to our environment as well as global inequalities and societal injustices - will require an overhaul of how we do everything, including how we move, how we eat, how we live, and how we care for each other and the planet. Fixing these issues in their entirety will give us the opportunity to create a fairer, more equal, more sustainable society and global economy.

I have spoken numerous times on climate change in this Chamber, as have many of the Deputies here. Many times we have called for measures, including radical legislation, which are opposed or blocked by Government. Despite the Government’s indication it will now move to ban single-use plastics in the coming years, welcome though it is, this is only on foot of the European Union requiring it. If we were to be a leader on this issue, the Government would have supported the Waste Reduction Bill when we introduced it two years ago. It would be supporting Deputy Bríd Smith’s Petroleum and Other Minerals Development (Amendment) (Climate Emergency Measures) Bill, instead of blocking it at every turn.

The Government has published an all-of-Government climate action plan. It identified the targets we need to achieve but was not willing to commit to the significant system change required to truly tackle the climate crisis. The Government's approach lacks ambition and it is not showing leadership. It is focused on cost rather than opportunity and we need that opportunity. Things as they stand are broken. They are broken for farmers; they are broken for our biodiversity; they are broken for rural areas; and they are broken for our young people. The verdict in the climate crisis case this afternoon shows the courts were not willing to interfere due to the separation of powers, but there was a clear recognition of the right to a healthy environment. That is why we need to change radically how we do things. We need to have that radical ambition when it comes to climate action. We need to invest in real public transport in all areas, urban and rural.

In Switzerland, the canton of Graubünden has a population density somewhere between those of Kerry and Mayo and yet it has hourly bus and rail services that are linked to the national grid. It is all doable if the Government is willing to actually commit to helping rural Ireland move towards a greener future. It cannot do it alone, and right now Government is abandoning it. We need active travel measures, walking and cycling infrastructure. Changing all of our petrol or diesel cars for electric vehicles will not deal with the congestion issues that are gridlocking our cities. In any event, seeking to have 1 million electric vehicles by 2030 is a complete fantasy. The Government is missing the point. We need to give commuters an alternative to the car and our children need to be able to walk and cycle safely to school. We need to have the option of taking a train or a bus and it should be regular. The lack of investment in public transport is the problem. We need to make our homes warmer and the Government needs to really kick start the enormous retrofitting project countrywide and start with our social housing stock. We need to invest in local renewabIes instead of sending all of our money to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf for oil, which, as we saw this week, is always going to be volatile in terms of price and supply. Let us make sure we keep that money here, in our communities.

Fine Gael has spent eight years trucking along the same route while inequality has just grown and grown. If we want to build a fairer, greener Ireland, we need to overhaul the system. The upcoming budget needs to show a strong intention to change these systems. The Government cannot continue to nudge itself a little bit forward in the right direction, we need to see an intention in the budget that ambitious system change is what Ireland is doing. This will also require a change to the national development plan, which currently is not fit for purpose. It needs a substantial overhaul, to focus on other modes of travel.

Tomorrow, students and other people throughout the country will go on strike, calling on the Government to take real climate action. This has happened before. The climate strikes in March and May were truly inspirational and it was incredible to stand there with my children, aged 12, 11 and eight, who were screaming outside the gates of Leinster House seeking that leadership from the Government to secure their future with all the other youth of Ireland. There are inspirational young people who stand up for climate action every Friday outside Leinster House. The Dundrum Climate Vigil Group comes together every Friday to demand that real climate action be taken by this Government. Striking for climate action is not infuriating, it is liberating. The young people who are standing up for their own future - for themselves - know that the system has to be rebuilt. They are calling on all of us to get behind them so we can do it. I will be there tomorrow with young people from around the country. I encourage all Members of this House to join the youth of Ireland and I encourage the Government to heed the youth. As we begin this new Dáil term, we need to commit to real, radical change, in the full knowledge that that is the only way to secure our future and create an Ireland that is fair and just, and that can be passed down and secured for the next generation.

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