Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to be able to contribute to the debate. Some positive legislation has come before us, yet there are some concerning areas I wish to speak on as well.

This legislation commits to cutting carbon emissions by 51% by the year 2030 and meeting a zero carbon emissions level by 2050. This Bill puts a statutory commitment to both of these and provides for economy-wide five-year carbon budgets. After the legislation is passed through these Houses, the next step will be to prepare a climate action plan. This will set out the actions required to reach the ambitious targets that are detailed in the Bill.

There are several areas I wish to speak on specifically and put to the Minister. The first is aviation. I hope that he will take a diametric position to one he held 12 or 14 months ago around the time of Government formation relating to aviation taxes. An article featured in the Irish Examinernewspaper last week in which the Minister spoke about this. At a time when airplanes are not in our skies and when aviation is at its lowest all-time ebb it is essential that everything is done to stimulate the sector to get back flying and to restore some normality. Some say it could take between four and five years to return to 2019 aviation international flight levels. Any talk of carbon and aviation taxes only serves to keep the industry down at ground level. That is not where aviation belongs. Aviation belongs in the skies above us and we need to have a diametric position as a nation when we engage with the European Commission and counterparts throughout Europe in that regard.

We need to see farmers as guardians of the land. They are the current custodians. They will pass the farms onto other generations. They are the best allies we can have in environmental protection. In that regard, they need to be treated properly. A new results-based environment agri-pilot project is being devised and launched by my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue. It is a pilot scheme. In future, CAP reform and farming centres need to be based around environmental measures that properly reward a farmer in the sense that they make it meaningful and reward him or her financially for going out and doing that work.

The Department needs to look at other measures beyond this legislation. Irish Cement has a tyre incineration application currently at appeal licensing stage with the Environmental Protection Agency. It is absurd that, at a time when most developed countries are moving out of incineration and large chimney stacks, this project is being considered in Limerick. As the crow flies, it is a stone's throw from my county of Clare. We are highly concerned about how we will be affected by the prevailing winds that will pass over the county, including over the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark. It is not where we want to be going as a county, especially when last week we had such a progressive announcement relating to offshore wind energy. The two do not mix. I realise the Minister cannot interfere but I hope that he and the Department would signal that this is not the direction in which we should go.

Positive and progressive legislation is before us but there is one glaring omission in the environmental legislation that I hope the Department will tighten up. It relates to GDPR and CCTV being used as a surveillance instrument for illegal dumping. We are being told by local authorities throughout the country that they cannot use CCTV, yet weekend after weekend, trucks and trailers come up the highways and byways of our countryside and dump material. There is some loophole that needs to be tightened. The Minister cares about the environment. I hope sincerely the Minister and his officials will urgently look at tightening that loophole so that CCTV can be used effectively in future to capture those who are illegally littering and fly-tipping and bring them to justice.

See this speech in context