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

I welcome Deputy Whitmore's comments. She is absolutely right that we have not had the legislative framework to allow for a focus on delivery. However, this is the last time we will have transition statements in this House, as they are a legacy of the 2015 legislation. The new legislation, the general scheme of which was published in December, sets out the new approach which will be very much results-oriented. As we discussed earlier, there will be an implementation board in the Department of the Taoiseach which will ensure that actions committed to are honoured. We will also have a very strong Oireachtas committee that will oversee targets on an individual, sectoral and ministerial basis, rather than the sort of catch-all bulldog clip approach of one Minister coming in and being accountable for the whole lot. That legislation will be a powerful shift in the way we manage the climate challenge. It reflects a lot of work, starting with the Citizens' Assembly and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Action, as well as the work of my own officials and others across Government. Everyone recognises that we have not had the necessary structures to implement change.

It is a little unfair to say we are making no progress. We have made progress even in the past 12 months. Renewables on our grid are significantly increasing, there has been an increase in the penetration of electric vehicles, and the carbon emissions from energy were down by close to 2% in 2019, at a time when the economy still grew very significantly by 5.5%. We are seeing some turning of the oil tanker, to use that possibly inappropriate phrase, as we seek to get to grips with this challenge but we have a huge distance to go.

The Deputy is right that there is a separate biodiversity plan which was not included in the climate plan. It was not under my remit and when I was putting this together the biodiversity plan was being developed elsewhere. She may be right that we need to integrate those in some ways, but that is a matter for future Governments. The approach we are taking in legislation generally is to make line Ministers responsible. Whoever is in the position of climate Minister would not be responding for transport and agriculture; rather, questions would go to the line Minister responsible.

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