Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a Bill that has real potential to benefit, not just our generation, but future generations. I would go as far as saying that this Bill has the potential to be transformative for Irish society and to instil a real sense of pride in our response to climate action. I know this is an important Bill for the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his party, for which his colleagues have shown a real passion and determination. I also acknowledge the contribution of the Joint Committee on Climate Action for its input on the Bill. I watched the Minister being heckled two weeks ago when introducing this fundamental Bill but I, for one, wish to thank him for bringing it before the Oireachtas.

Agriculture is one sector that has raised some concerns and while many challenges exist for it, this sector also has the potential to positively address climate action. There will be a need for real and meaningful engagement to address the concerns of this sector. The Bill will provide for extensive consultation in the development of carbon budgets and future plans and strategies, ensuring effective public and stakeholder participation at all key steps of the process, which I welcome. It is also important to look at the prospective benefits when farmers engage proactively on climate change. For example, the results based environment-agri pilot project, REAP, is an important step. I am specifically thinking of farmers availing of REAP who choose to use more renewable energy in their farms, as I suspect this would increase their environmental scores. This, in turn, would lead to greater payments under schemes such as REAP, which I suspect we will see expanded over time. I welcome this.

At constituency level in Mayo, I was impressed with the efforts of local communities in their work on becoming decarbonisation zones. It shows there is a real appetite among community groups to take this issue seriously and raise awareness of it. Some specific issues have been raised with me by constituents about this proposed legislation and they need to be addressed. For instance, there is a need for more detail on the principles of climate justice and a just transition. There is a demand to provide more clarification on the interpretation of the 2030 targets, which is an important step. There also seems to be a lack of targets set for aviation, shipping, non-territorial emissions and offshore mitigation.

The regional airports programme, which is of significant benefit to small airports, also supports sustainability objectives. It may be worthwhile discussing how sustainability funding under the programme can be increased and indeed, putting in place similar sustainability funding increasing over time for other transport modes and sectors. One that comes to mind is the western rail corridor, which is an important piece of infrastructure.

This is a critical junction for Ireland, at which we need to choose the right path and grasp the nettle versus failing to act. In doing so, we need to put our money where our mouths are on climate change. I note that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, acknowledged the significant level of investment required by ESB for our electricity network assets and renewable generation assets in previous debates on this Bill. I was glad to hear that plans are in place to increase the statutory borrowing limit of the ESB from its current level of €6 billion to €12 billion to support this.

I acknowledge the thousands of young people and students around the country who stood up and said that now is the time for action, urging Government to prioritise measures to protect against the ravages of climate breakdown. This ranged from the Youth Assembly on Climate Change coming into the Dáil to the school strikers and the many green activists who lined our streets. This Government is listening, and more importantly, acting. I welcome this Bill and look forward to supporting it.

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