John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are in the midst of two global crises of unprecedented proportions. The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact across the globe and no nation or people has escaped unscathed. Covid has resulted in countless deaths, devastated industries and disrupted the lives and livelihoods of millions, if not billions. Worrying, rising infection rates testify to the ongoing threat of the pandemic as we move into the winter. Of the 1.8 billion vaccine doses promised to the world's poorest countries, only one in seven has been delivered, meaning that only 1.3% of people in the poorest parts of the world are fully vaccinated. This, with the continued refusal of the EU to push for the waiving of intellectual property rights on vaccine production, is contributing to the ongoing threat of the virus as it continues to mutate.

Alongside the Covid-19 crisis, we have the climate crisis – a potentially existential crisis entirely of our own making. One thing the Covid and climate crises have in common is that they have both impacted the poorer nations of the world much more severely than others. It has been estimated that since the start of Covid, a full decade of progress in the international war on hunger has been overturned. In the future, scarcity and extreme weather, leading to drought and famine, will have a hugely destabilising effect on the global stage.

As the world's leaders arrived in Scotland on board their private jets to discuss the climate crisis, a key area to be addressed was the need to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C. Under the Paris Agreement, the target was set at 2°C. In the difference between the two targets, which is half a degree, lies the fate of many nations and island states, which will simply cease to exist as their homelands become either uninhabitable or completely flooded. Prior to the start of the COP26 negotiations, it was revealed that the chief carbon-producing countries were lobbied to weaken the UN climate report. In Europe we are still overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels, a reality that has left the EU vulnerable to the whim of geopolitics, which has contributed to the driving up of gas prices at an alarming rate. In turn, this has driven up the cost of electricity, which in turn is putting Irish households to the pin of their collars.

Failure to invest in the future has left us facing into winter under threat of blackouts. The European Commission has already recommended that member states work to lower the cost of energy prices for consumers by cutting taxes and levies, alongside providing subsidies for those facing energy poverty. On an electricity bill of €220, a typical user will currently pay a standing charge of €35, a public service obligation, PSO, levy of more than €13 and VAT at 13.5%, which amounts to just over €36, leading to a total bill of more than €304. That is an extra €84 on top of energy costs that are rising at an alarming rate. This is not sustainable for ordinary families. Taken together with the aggregate rise in the cost of living, people are going to go hungry and cold and will be driven to despair. They are being continually failed by the Taoiseach and his Government. The cost of rent, childcare and feeding and clothing a family must be addressed by the Government.

I am alarmed at the situation in Poland. The emergence of populist right-wing governments in eastern Europe continues to be a matter of the gravest concern. The erosion of liberal values continues unabated. The actions of the Polish Government in stacking its judiciary with right-wing government appointees seriously undermines the independence and legitimacy of their rulings. This is a matter that bears further scrutiny in the questions and answers session that will be taken at the conclusion of statements.

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