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

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 6, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following: “ “air quality” means the reduction in air pollution as defined in the Air Pollution Act 1987;

“carbon sequestration” means a natural or artificial process by which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and held in solid or liquid form;”.

I am speaking to amendments Nos. 1 and 11 to 16, inclusive. There are two issues regarding these amendments. First, I believe that air quality must be included as part of the remit of the climate action fund. Any of us who understand the issues of climate change will appreciate that air quality is the practical, here-and-now aspect of climate change. By improving air quality in the short term, we can have a long-term impact on overall emissions. There has been a narrative to try to disassociate those two objectives and to suggest that air quality and climate action are the opposite sides of the same coin. While there is much media attention and discussion online regarding climate change, there is very little concerning air pollution, because we do not actually see it.

The facts are that four people die every day in Ireland as a result of poor air quality and 122,000 bed nights every year are occupied by people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. In fact, one in 12 people in Ireland have COPD, one in five children in Ireland has asthma and Ireland has the fourth highest incidence of asthma globally. It is important, therefore, that this legislation clearly reflects the objective of improving air quality, which has a direct impact on our climate emissions. When the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is responding, he might outline when we will see the clean air strategy. As he will know from the files in his Department, the first draft of that strategy was being completed in September 2018 and yet, bizarrely, it seems to have gone down the priority list within the Department. The Minister might update us on that aspect.

In addition, when the Minister is updating me, he might let me know where the warmth and well-being research that was being conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is. It was due to provide the Department with a preliminary report in September 2018. I noticed from a recent parliamentary reply that the report is still ongoing, which seems bizarre to me. I do not believe that the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is that incompetent that two years later we still do not have the preliminary report. Having access to that information is significant for the decisions we are going to make as a country. Anecdotal information from the warmth and well-being pilot is showing that people are more comfortable in their own homes, are getting sick less often, are presenting to their GPs less often, are being prescribed antibiotics less frequently, are presenting to hospitals less often, are having shorter stays in hospital and are being discharged more frequently directly to their own homes rather than to step-down facilities. This research has huge potential regarding improving health outcomes in this country, but it seems to have evaporated.

The second element to my amendment concerns carbon sequestration, which, bizarrely, is not included in the legislation. The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, referred last night to the just transition, Bord na Móna workers, rehabilitating bogs and biodiversity. That is all carbon sequestration, yet it is not included in this legislation. I note that in last week's Irish Farmers' Journalthere was a leak regarding the submission that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine made to the European Commission. The document refers to incentivising carbon sequestration measures and better management of our wetlands and peatlands and making that a key priority. One of the things the climate action fund could do is to spearhead research in this area to come up with some innovative solutions. To date, that has not been forthcoming from organisations such as Teagasc. The climate action fund could help to spearhead innovation in that area.

There is another aspect of sequestration that I believe the climate action fund also needs to spearhead.

Again, that is not happening from Teagasc. We all accept that Ireland has one of the best grass production systems in the world. We should be focused on the development of new grass-based solutions to meet our current and future food needs as well as our energy needs. To date the research community has been behind the curve in that regard.

In the 1970s some of my family worked in Gowla Farms outside Ballyforan in my constituency in County Galway. The farm was producing food for pigs and poultry from dried grass. Yet, that industry has now evaporated. There were financial reasons for that but surely it is not beyond our research community to come up with innovative products derived from grass.

While I am on the issue of grass-based systems I am keen to put on the record that disadvantaged land types in this country, especially in the west of Ireland, remove carbon from our atmosphere and convert it into human protein on land that is not suitable for tillage. The argument is being made that we need to move away from beef production and start growing crops. Yet, the reality is a farmer could not go 20 yards with a plough before it would be in ribbons because of the type of land we have. The Acting Chairman knows this well given the nature of many parts of her constituency. Beef production is a way of utilising the land, sequestering carbon and converting it into human protein. Let us look at new research in this area. The climate action fund could be the driver of that innovation.

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