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

The Deputy is right. That fear is real and it belongs to every one of every party, age and country. It is the primary challenge we face in this time. It has to guide us towards radical system change to reduce emissions. The test of that will come in the near future when our latest iteration of the climate action plan will put forward proposals in areas such as transport, energy, agriculture and industry, which have gone beyond compare in the scale of the changes that need to be made. Many of the changes will not be popular, as we heard earlier in discussions on some of the projects we have to do. It will be similar, I imagine, in my constituency, other Dublin coastal constituencies and along the east coast with the development of offshore wind. I have heard some of the Deputy's colleagues, such as Deputy Boyd Barrett and others, raise concerns which are absolutely valid. We have to listen to every aspect of this, but we must be careful not to find ourselves not being able to act. It is the same in transport. I have been around the country to every local authority, as best I can. It has been fascinating to listen to a lot of the intelligence in local government, but I also sense it will be difficult for us to do the scale of change we need to do to reduce our transport emissions. I could go through any sector with that. The test of this will be for all of us in the next five years, or next three years, I would argue, as to whether we can do the scale of system changes that are needed. That will be a test for everyone of every party.

See this speech in context