Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----in the last couple of months to bring about climate action, something about which we are very serious.

On what I said on Thursday, I am happy to clarify that it was, as The Sunday Business Poststated, an observation, not a policy statement. I can see how it was open to misinterpretation by those who may be pursuing a climate sceptic agenda. However, I would like to provide a little bit of context for my remarks. The document we were launching was the climate change sectoral adaptation plan for the health sector, 2019 to 2024, published by the Department of Health. Page 14 of the plan states:

It is also important to note that there are a number of health benefits projected to occur as a result of climate change, for example warmer weather may reduce the risk of cold-related illness and death and may potentially improve mental health and wellbeing and increase physical activity levels.

This is a scientific and evidence-based document with seven pages of scientific references and citations backing up its contents. I also draw Members' attention to the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, introduced by the then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly of the Labour Party when it was in government. It is an Act that we all voted for. Section 5 of that Act requires the Government, in its national adaptation plan, to avail of any "positive effects of climate change that may occur". The then Minister and those Members who voted for that legislation in the House at the time not only believed that there may be positive effects of climate change, they also wrote it into the law and made it a requirement that the Government take them into account in its adaptation plans. I do not think anyone would argue that Deputies Alan Kelly, Eamon Ryan, Micheál Martin or the environmental NGOs, who all supported writing that provision into law, are like Donald Trump or are climate change deniers.

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