Dáil debates

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages

 

7:02 pm

Photo of Matt ShanahanMatt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak in support of the amendments Deputy Naughten has put forward on behalf of the Regional Group. I have a particular concern around the agricultural sector. There has been discussion in the media in recent months that has tacitly steered towards the identification of the agricultural sector as a big problem in terms of climate. I do not think that is entirely justified. We have previously spoken about the issue of biogenic methane. New Zealand has come up with a construct that separates biogenic methane from the overall calculation of greenhouse gases. That should have been done with this legislation but the Minister has chosen not to. We need to recognise that farmers are the custodians of the general environment and countryside. They will be the custodians of the future agrifood sector. It does not make sense to me at all that we could, in the future, be looking for reductions in the national herd and in beef production while we watch the EU taking beef from South America under the Mercosur deal. The rainforest is being cut down in order to supply that product to the EU. That makes no sense and will do absolutely nothing to mitigate climate change. It will, in fact, contribute to it.

We have a dysfunctional forestry sector at the moment. We have one of the lowest proportions of forestry of any European country. We are trying to be self-sufficient and have made very poor attempts in the past 12 months to provide some functionality to the sector. If our actions on forestry are an indicator of what we are going to do on climate change, we certainly will not be successful and yet the agricultural sector will be picked on as an easy outlier.

Some years ago, I was involved in a business that sold energy saving equipment into the public sector. I gave it up after 18 months because it was nearly impossible to bring about change. I have a feeling that we will be in the same place again.

What is happening to the grants for solar arrays and connections that were promised to farmers in recent years? We could be doing much more to develop renewable energy but that has not been happening. This Bill refers to renewable energy at a time when, as has been alluded to already, it appears we have entered into more than 20 contracts with international data centres. There is much that is not right with this climate Bill. At the same time, I, like everybody else, recognise that we must start doing something for the environment. Along with Deputy Naughten, I will support legislation which we, in the Regional Group, hope to introduce after the recess and which we hope the Minister will consider. I ask him to think long and carefully about the farm and agrifood sector. It is a prince among the economic components of this country and is totally ingrained in the Irish culture.

The damage that we can do will last a very long time and will do very little, I suspect, to mitigate climate change.

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