Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On the timing issue, when we first published the legislation I expressed the possibility that the pre-legislative scrutiny would be quite short and much shorter than usual. That is because there is a certain urgency in my mind in getting the Bill passed so that we can start implementing its measures next year. In that way we can include 2021 in the first five-year plan, and there is real urgency for us to raise our ambition on climate action. It has taken longer than I had originally expected but that is not unusual. It is appropriate if the committee has been doing good work in assessing it, which I think it has. I would still be hopeful - I cannot force the hand of the committee on this - for us to have the report in the third week of November, as was the window I was hoping for which is not that far from now. The benefit would be I could implement a number of amendments reflecting on what the committee has done and that would give us time to get back into the Dáil in a fairly timely manner. I will come back on the issue of public consultation later on.

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