Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Baineann mo cheist le hathrú aeráide, go háirithe an cinneadh a rinne an Chúirt Uachtarach ar an lá deireanach de mhí Iúil. Dúradh sa bhreithiúnas sin go raibh an plean, the mitigation plan, mídhleathach, go háirithe ó thaobh na ndualgas a bhí ar an Rialtas plean a leagan amach ag comhlíonadh na ndualgas a bhí air faoin reachtaíocht 2015. Significantly, on 9 May last year, we declared a climate emergency. We did so for very good reason: because the word "challenges" does not capture what we face with climate change. The Taoiseach himself has recognised this in the programme for Government, which refers to the importance of transformational change. The year we declared the emergency, the Climate Change Advisory Council, a body I will come back to because of its lack of gender representation, told us in blunt terms that we would fail as a country and a Government to meet our obligations, notwithstanding the catastrophe we face in 2020 and 2030. Then, on 31 July of this year, the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Clarke, delivered a unanimous seven-judge Supreme Court judgment in the climate case taken by Friends of the Irish Environment, and I pay tribute to that organisation. They were not objectors; they were very concerned citizens and residents of this country. In that judgment, the Supreme Court quashed the Government's national mitigation plan. Mr. Justice Clarke outlined that section 4 of the 2015 Act required the mitigation plan to be specific and that the purpose of requiring the plan to be specific was to allow any interested member of the public to know enough about how the Government intends to meet the national transition objective by 2050 so as to inform the views of the reasonable and interested member of the public as to whether that policy was considered effective and appropriate. The Government has made the argument repeatedly, including in court, and I agree with it, that this is a living document. The court accepted that, but the Chief Justice went on to say, notwithstanding that it is a living document, "it does seem to me to be reasonable to characterise significant parts of the policies as being excessively vague or aspirational". The court went on to quash the plan. We have therefore had no mitigation plan since 31 July, when the Supreme Court quashed it. What has the Taoiseach done about this? I ask him not to tell me he will come back with an action plan or a climate plan within the next 100 days. He may do that, and I would welcome that, but that is not his obligation following this judgment. His obligation is the mitigation plan.

I will come back to gender equality and the Climate Change Advisory Council.

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