Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome these amendments from the Seanad. They will bring some fairness to this climate action Bill. I want to support this in terms of peat. With regard to the madness there, we have had discussions at the Oireachtas committee I chair on peat extraction in this country. It makes absolutely no sense that the horticulture and the nursery sectors are not able to acquire locally harvested peat. It is nonsensical and it has to stop.

While we have increased issuing of licences for felling and thinning, the licences being issues for afforestation are still exceptionally low. Last week, only five licences were issued for afforestation. If we take the targets we have missed over the past five years, in the lifetime of that forestry, it would sequester 75 million tonnes of carbon. What this would do to balance the budget in this country would be unbelievable. We have to increase our levels of afforestation. We will only hit 20% to 25% of our target in 2021. That is not good enough and we have to increase the number of licences that will be issued for afforestation.

One omission from this Bill is a separate budget for biogenic methane. That is essential but, unfortunately, it is not in this Bill. We have commentators out there who say this country does not have a responsibility to produce food. We feed approximately 60 million people despite the size of our country. We have a moral responsibility to produce food. We are an affluent society, but much of the world is starving. Some 860 million people in the world tonight are in a famine situation. Another 2 billion have an inadequate diet. We can produce food more sustainably than anyone else in the world and we have a moral responsibility to do it.

I welcome this climate Bill. Yes, we have to adapt but we have to continue to produce our top quality food sustainably. That is what the farmers of this country will continue to do.

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