Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fair enough. I get constantly interrupted as well, which is fair enough. I do not have an issue with it.

Deputy Bacik referred to climate finance. Our commitment is €225 million by 2025 on a permanent basis. Within that, we allocated €10 million to the global shield. What are now required are concrete proposals and initiatives around climate finance that we can support. Our embassies, particularly those in Africa, are working bilaterally with governments and NGOs to see how best we can apply that money to climate finance issues. There is a need for integration across other files as well. We cannot deal with it in silos. It is difficult. The World Food Programme made the point that there is too much silo thinking across the entire aid programme now. We need more crop resilience and we need to invest more in all that. It is kind of part of climate finance. The food production systems are failing in many countries because of climate change. The question is to be answered is how we can make their food production system more resilient. That is where some of our climate finance could usefully be applied and allocated. We need to work with NGOs and like-minded governments across Europe because the European Union remains the biggest donor in this respect. It is probably the most constructive contributor to COP more generally, along with others.

Deputy Barry again referenced Alok Sharma, the lead for COP26 in Glasgow last year, who did a fantastic job in what he achieved there. I do not believe his point in respect of corporations is correct. He referred to politicians acting as their puppets. I often wonder whether we have some useful puppets here for other jurisdictions, but that is another day's work because-----

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