Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. On my way to the Convention Centre, I remembered that it is now three years since I originally put forward this particular concept. I want to thank the current and former management and board of the National Oil Reserves Agency. They put in a tremendous effort to deal with a deficit, outstanding debt and the fact they did not have oil reserves available to them. Since the establishment of the fund, they have dealt with all of that and, as a result, have created the surplus that we are discussing today.

The Minister will know that there is a shortfall of €700 million in the fund. The original concept with which I came forward would have ensured a fund of €1.2 billion, something we will address on Committee Stage tomorrow. I hope we get support from the Government on that.

While acknowledging the work of the staff, management and board of NORA, the issue of energy security still represents a major vulnerability for Ireland today. We cannot just brush it under the carpet. I ask the Government to consider the issue of energy security policy because we need to achieve set targets for indigenous energy supply in order to reduce or eliminate the importation of energy into this country, increase the Exchequer reserves and protect Ireland's energy security.

The Government needs to create an energy security advisory committee to develop that policy and the associated action plan that will be needed post-Brexit to protect our energy security. That is a role and capacity that NORA could have going forward.

The climate action fund was announced as part of Project Ireland 2040. Project Ireland 2040, despite criticism at the time, was a significant step forward in the approach, both in terms of scale and ambition, in investment in the whole area of climate change. The big difference between the promises that had been made by previous Ministers with responsibility for the environment was that the commitments were backed up by the funding to deliver on what was set out in Project Ireland 2040.

Some €22,000,000,000 went directly into climate-focused investment and a further €8.6 billion in sustainable mobility. That is €1 in €4 of capital spend by the State and State agencies over the next decade that is focused on climate action and emissions reduction. This is significant, not just in European terms but, in fact, in global terms. For Ireland, it represented a huge leap forward in our approach to addressing the issue of climate action. Of that €22 billion, some €4 billion went into energy efficiency upgrades, getting rid of dirty fossil fuels from our heating systems within a 200 month period, taking dirty fossil fuels of out power generation by 2025 and rolling out the smart farming initiative across the country which evidence has shown reduces emissions in agriculture by 10%.

If one wants to put another name on this particular legislation it is the "bring people with us" law, because that is the objective behind the climate action fund. From my experience as Minister with responsibility for the environment, environmentalists, in many instances, were far too focused on the vehicle rather than the end result to reduce emissions. Bringing people along the climate action journey was and is completely alien to many environmentalists. Instead, they want to take a continental European climate solution and shoehorn it into an Irish situation. One will not get a replica result by doing that. On top of that, the communities across this country in rural Ireland are firmly of the view that environmentalists are only interested in taxing people in rural Ireland to try to force them into our congested cities.

The objective and goal behind the climate action fund was to come up with innovative solutions to Irish climate problems because we have, believe it or not, unique challenges here. It is an alternative to the approach advocated by the Green Party leader of carpooling for people living in rural villages which is not realistic or practical. However, the climate action fund can fund initiatives that are practical, can be implemented in urban and rural areas and will have a direct impact on our emissions profile.

We need to acknowledge the fact we have by far the most dispersed rural communities anywhere in Europe. Some 37% of our population lives on 96% of the land mass of Ireland and the environmentalists need to wake up and realise that is not going to change any time soon. Live with the facts and let us come up with solutions that deal with those facts.

In 2018 in the city of Dublin just 50% of people used public transport. Huge public investment is going into it. That public transport solution is not available in rural Ireland but we should look at how we can maximise the utilisation of public transport in urban areas. Carbon tax will not do that because people in rural areas disproportionately pay more of that tax without any alternative. However, congestion charges, which have been dismissed to date by some people within the Green Party, are a solution to that. We also need to acknowledge that across the midland counties solid fuel is the only source of heating for one in five homes. That is a huge problem that needs to be overcome and we need to come up with a solution. District heating will not resolve that particular problem.

Ireland is unusual compared to other EU countries in terms of our emissions profile, because the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture make up a much larger share of our emissions than anywhere else in Europe. In fact, one third of our emissions come for agriculture. Even though 90% of the beef we produce is exported, Ireland is penalised for being the most carbon-efficient beef exporter within the European Union because the rules state responsibility is on the producer rather than the consumer of that product. Relatively carbon-efficient beef production can, therefore, be replaced throughout the European Union with beef that is 35 times worse from an environmental perspective from the Amazon basin. That is okay according to climate mathematicians, but not our atmosphere.

Another challenge we have, bizarrely, here in Ireland is air quality. While we cannot see air pollution, it is a big problem. Four people per day are dying as a result of poor air quality. Air quality concerns people's health today. Climate action and climate change concerns the next generation's health in the future. It is two sides of the same coin and we need to be focused if we are going to bring people with us on the issues of air quality. Some 122,000 beds per year are taken up in our hospitals because of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. One in 12 people in Ireland suffer from COPD. One in five children in Ireland suffer from asthma. In fact, we have the fourth highest rate of asthma in the world. Improvements in air quality which reduce our carbon emissions profile has a direct impact on the health of Irish people today and on the impact of Covid-19.

The concept behind the climate action fund is to turn innovative ideas into climate action using the fund to support larger-scale projects that would not otherwise be developed without the support of Government. The fund is about a new way of problem solving in both urban and rural communities, in business and enterprise, on climate and environmental issues. I recognise that the Government does not have a monopoly on good ideas. That is why I was determined to have this particular fund established with its primary goal to drive innovative projects that will reduce Ireland's carbon emissions and deal with the unique challenges we have. The fund was planned to open up to support joint ventures, harness creativity and support initiatives coming from local communities and business as well as global corporations. The objective behind it is that it will be a blank canvas for everyone here in Ireland to come forward with innovative ideas that can help meet our climate and energy targets. It will be a blank canvas for anyone with a global interest in this area who is prepared to come to Ireland and try out that initiative which will have a direct impact on our overall emissions profile.

The core behind this fund, which was taken on board by Government and replicated into three other funds, namely, the rural regeneration fund, the urban regeneration fund and the fund within the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation on new innovative ideas, was that there would not be a plethora of terms and conditions.

My view was that the criteria being laid down by civil servants and Ministers were choking creativity. The idea was to keep eligibility broad, to focus on the end result, which was reducing our overall emissions profile and let people come up with the ideas because effective climate change is about putting the levers of action into the hands of ordinary people the length and breadth of this country, and delivery requires fundamental transformation in our thinking as a society. The climate action fund, when it was announced, was the largest per capitafund of its type in the world, and there is some international interest in it.

The opportunities provided by the fund are endless, whether they be community-led electricity and energy or other projects. Earlier, the Aire Stáit mentioned the Three Counties Energy Agency project. As Minister, I was determined to reduce the overall emissions profile and electricity demand for local authorities throughout the country and through the climate action fund, we will reduce the electricity bill of every local authority by replacing all of the public lighting in the State. These are practical measures for which there was no Government funding but they could make a real difference to our emissions profile. I hope when this fund is established on a statutory footing that this core principle is accepted and that we do not have a situation where the fund is used by the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance to wallpaper over other deficits or to fund projects that should normally be funded through other mechanisms of Government. Having listened to the Minister of State's contribution, I am concerned that the tentacles of Government Buildings are already getting into that fund. That was never the intention and should not be allowed to be the intention of that fund. That is why I will table amendments relating to the fund tomorrow.

Another amendment I will table seeks to have the fund increased to €1.2 billion. If one were to go back through the substantial file on this legislation within my former Department, one would see that my objective all along was to increase the levy from 2% to 3%, bring in an extra €700 million, paid for by the oil industry through the distributors, and in tandem with that reduce the amount consumers pay in carbon tax. The end result to the public in terms of fuel costs is that they would see no difference but it would mean that this tax was put on the oil industry. I cannot believe that a Government that is supposed to have such a green agenda and that has such a green hue is bringing forward legislation that does not increase the taxes on the oil industry but the Minister will get the opportunity to do that tomorrow. I look forward to him accepting my proposal tomorrow.

Finally, I want to bring up another aspect of this fund. This time last year I proposed that part of the fund would be specifically ring-fenced to support the rehabilitation work that was needed on the cutaway bogs in the midlands and to support employment of Bord na Móna staff, in particular, in east Galway, Roscommon, Longford, Westmeath, Laois and Offaly, that had been badly impacted upon by the fact that no harvest has taken place this summer. All of those seasonal staff are currently in limbo. They have received no communication whatsoever from the board or from Government as to if or when they will have a job. The only indication that this fund will be used is in the proposal on the day it was announced.

Nobody has bothered to address those staff who are living in limbo today. Some of them are in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment while others are in receipt of the wage subsidy. All of them want to be back working on the bogs and are available and willing to do that. Unfortunately, some of the seasonal staff, who were not called back earlier in the year along with their colleagues, are getting absolutely nothing. These people have worked for ten or 15 years on these bogs, did not get called back in the early part of the season and as a result, they are living on fresh air, and that is being ignored. At the same time as we the taxpayers are paying, through Bord na Móna, the wage subsidy scheme and the pandemic unemployment payment to those who have been temporarily laid off, we have staff drawing those payments who have applied to Bord na Móna to take redundancy and their application is not being processed by the company. I believe that it is a public scandal that we are using taxpayers' money, which we are borrowing, to subsidise staff who have applied for a redundancy package, who want to leave and cannot get out the door, to remain on the books within Bord na Móna. I hope that the Minister of State will specifically address that issue. I have raised it with his predecessor, the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, all of whom are quite prepared to justify the paying of public money, but that is not a just transition. It is not a just transition for the taxpayer. It is not just for the employees who want to get out and it is not just for the employees who are living on fresh air and want to get back to work.

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