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

God Almighty. Two minutes. I absolutely accept the conviction of Deputy Smith. The corporations will have to play their part too and no one gets out of this. We also need the corporations: we will need the income, the jobs and the tax revenue to pay for our social services. We will go to those corporations and say that if we are going to run data centres they will have to be zero carbon too just like farming. No one gets out of it. No one gets by it. I am sure those corporations will want this. They will want to be part of a country that will set that high bar because that is where the future is. That is where security lies. That is where any modern new economy is going to go.

To respond to Deputy Nolan, I was proud to engage with Bord na Móna for more than 30 years. We set aside some €150 million all told to try to fund the immediate just transition in the midlands, in retrofitting houses and in getting jobs back in Bord na Móna such as rewetting the bogs and a range of community projects. It is frustrating that it takes time. We must obey European Union laws and rules and we must make sure that we do not get caught up here by having money spent in any way where i's were not dotted or t's not crossed. All the time I try to say to "Come on, let us get it out and run with this as quickly as we can", similar to Deputy Naughten. There is no shortage of funding for it because we believe in Bord na Móna. I absolutely believe that the company has a proud record and will have a proud future in going green.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae referred to anaerobic digestion. It is part of the way we can get farmers more income and we need to sit down and work out the mechanism of doing it. It has to be part of a land-use plan that puts rural community and development first. It must be microgeneration also. How long it takes is frustrating. We had it the last time we were in government.

There is no shortage of listening here. We have had 80 hours. We introduced the Bill in October and since then there have been 80 hours of committee hearings, parliamentary hearings and Second Stage debate, but it is time for us to turn and listen as we go. We have to listen now as we look at the solutions. It is time for the Bill to be put in place so we can actually set that high bar that delivers us all of these opportunities.

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