Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept that the Minister does not have a function when we take fossil fuel extractions and the impact it has on the community. I do not accept that from Deputy Eamon Ryan, as a Minister in government and in his position as the leader of the Green Party. Whatever these extractions happen, if they impact locally or globally, we all have a function in that regard, which is why I am raising it with the Minister today.

We are no longer taking coal from Russia for obvious reasons, which we all supported, but now we are taking it from Colombia instead. What is the standard that we apply? What if I told the Minister the only public service that seems to be around the Cerrejón mine is a large military base? What if I told him that communities, both indigenous and local, were forcibly removed from their land for the mine's extractions at the point of a gun? Does that standard apply? I am asking for what human rights and indigenous rights activists are asking for, be they in Colombia or in the rest of the world. It is for the same standards to apply.

We accept the fact that at this particular point we still need to take our coal from somewhere but we have a responsibility to the communities that are impacted by that as we do so. What I am asking of the Minister is to accept the responsibility to engage with the ESB to ensure that we have a human rights assessment, that we do not leave the communities there suffering as they have been for more than 40 years, although it is 20 years since we have been taking our coal from there. We stopped in 2018 because of the human rights injustices that were happening at that particular site. We cannot simply go back now because of human rights injustices that are happening elsewhere and pretend to be blind to Colombia.

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