Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the content of this motion and Deputy Fitzmaurice's work on it. Sometimes it is a shame that the schedule of the Dáil is so rigid in respect of when parties or groupings have business in Private Members' time. This motion would have been better discussed last week. That is the case no matter what side one is on in this debate. Anyone who listened to Deputy Fitzmaurice debate this issue on "Morning Ireland" a few days ago from the perspective of his experience of being a man of the bog, as he said on that programme, would have realised this is something we should have been discussing last week. The debate got away from us last week and it became about other things.

This subject concerns the regulations and how we can move from the status quo, which cannot continue, to where we need to go. We may differ on this point, but at least this motion is technical and based in the reality of what is happening on the ground in the communities on the bog being heated by the turf from those bogs. This aspect must be acknowledged. We must, however, move and bring people with us. This is where the Government has failed in recent weeks and that is why this has become such a worrying issue.

The facts do not lie. Some 1,300 die annually due to poor air quality. There are several reasons for this, including emissions from vehicle fuel, smoky coal and the burning of turf. We do not know to what degree each contributes, but taken together, having all these particles in the air is damaging people's health. I just about remember the 1980s and the smog in Dublin resulting from the use of smoky coal. Work went into reducing the use of such smoky coal in Dublin and our other major cities.

We now need an all-island ban on smoky coal because it can still be seen. In my constituency of Dublin Fingal, coal can still be seen for sale at the side of the road in bags that we do not know the origin of. We also do not know the standard of this type of coal. Many people, however, believe it to be smoky coal. This practice must stop and we need a 32-county approach to achieving this objective. After the Assembly elections, this is something we must explore with real vigour. I say that because this remains a problem. In 2015, the then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, began the process of introducing a nationwide ban on smoky coal. It ended up running into the sands when we left, or were kicked out of, Government, in 2016.

We see, and have seen, continued resistance to doing what is needed regarding reducing particle emissions into our atmosphere and reducing our air pollution. These are difficult decisions to make. There is no denying this point. Unfortunately, the approach taken by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has perhaps been too bullheaded and has caused this row, which has been building in recent weeks. It need not have come to this point. We must examine what practical solutions could have been proposed in this context. For example, we know the homes that require turf to fire their central heating systems or just to heat those homes that do not have central heating. One of the solutions we suggested was that we could have fast-tracked those properties for retrofitting. We are looking at this scheme and it is still almost up in the atmosphere. People are not seeing it on the ground.

If, however, the Government had stated that it knew turf was a poor fuel for heating homes and that this was a status quothat must be moved away from, while also acknowledging that people living in fuel poverty do not have other options now and therefore the Government was going to fast-track retrofitting those people's homes, that would have been the way bring people with them, but that was not done. An ideological approach was taken. It was absorbed by these communities and this is what has caused the fear that exists. This has all happened in a context where there are practical solutions that could have brought people with us on this transition and got us to where we want to be. That objective is to reduce to zero the need to burn poor fossil fuels in our homes, businesses or vehicles to enable us to live, commute and work. This is the point we must get to.

We have talked about the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021 and the globe being on fire and climate breakdown. The reality when it comes to making decisions is that they become politically difficult. Therefore, we must find solutions to get us through, because there is no other option. We must stop burning turf, coal and other fossil fuels. Other solutions exist and we must target them at the people in need of them. The cost-of-living crisis is real. Fuel poverty is very real. The fuel allowance is not fit for purpose and it is not helping people where they need it. Even if people do receive fuel allowance payments, just providing more money to buy poor fossil fuels that are going to damage the atmosphere is not where we need to be. That is the status quo. We must move forward and bring people with us.

This motion goes some way towards doing that. We will always find ourselves at some point being on opposite sides or not being fully in agreement. This motion is borne from lived experience. It offers a proposal worthy of discussion. We must see something more from the Government on this issue. We cannot allow our war on climate change to fall at any hurdle, and especially not at this one.

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