Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies who participated in the debate. There is a great deal of consensus in the House to have proper systems of consultation; workers protected; evaluation of new opportunities in the decarbonised economy and enterprise agencies supporting those; development of appropriate skills and reskilling of people who need to be re-skilled; funding set aside to support not just individuals but regions which are affected; and development of the role of the EU, particularly with its coal platform, applied to Ireland's particular problems. I agree with all of that.

The only area where I have contention with the Bill is in the way it is proposed to structure this. Instead of the whole Government developing a strategy to do this, the Bill envisages a commission which will designate individual enterprises and public bodies and ask each one to come up with a separate plan then put that through a wringer of individual agencies consulting on each plan, having objections to a plan, going to mediation through a commission and then perhaps to adjudication by that commission. That superstructure is not well designed to achieve the consensus approach set out here. The only reason I mention money messages is that we have to be satisfied that whatever is proposed by the Oireachtas is an effective way of using resources to achieve the objectives.

By going on to Committee Stage we can tease these things out. Deputy Cowen put it fairly plainly when he said he regarded the development of a response to just transition as a political responsibility. He did not say that the person on this commission and the multiple bodies it might designate as prescribed bodies, and the process of each of body evolving plans, is what we want. He talked about consultation, worker protection, evaluation of opportunities and funds to back change. That is what we have to try to design together. I am not being negative about just transition. It is at the heart of this but the superstructure created by this Bill is not the appropriate one. The Oireachtas will not want a commission that is not answerable to the House, working in mediation and in a semi-planning process as envisaged here, but coherence across Government, the ability to bring the various agencies of Government together to support the workers and the region, to identify the opportunities and to see that the regional representatives, including the Industrial Development Authority, IDA, and Enterprise Ireland, are empowered to deliver the change in the affected regions. That goes to the heart of governance. Governments work to serve the needs of citizens.

I am absolutely convinced this is very well intentioned and that Deputy Eamon Ryan will defend it. That is the purpose of debate, that is why we come here, to exchange views. People may say they are surprised at the Minister taking a different view or whatever but that is what we are all here to do, to challenge one another. That is the consensus, we all want the same thing, a transition that delivers the changes we need to make, demanded by the need for climate action, the science and the generations coming behind us. We also want to make sure that we protect, insofar as possible, the skills, the commitment and the regions that are impacted. It is an argument about whether this Bill succeeds in doing what we want to achieve. That is why we will tease out that issue in committee.

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