Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am normally constructively critical, and quite severely so, of the management in the city council in Galway but on this occasion, it did everything right. It submitted the decarbonisation zone plan two years ago and the Department has done nothing since then. I and other colleagues, I think, followed it up and we were told that it was waiting for the statutory guidelines. It has taken until last Friday to publish the statutory guidelines, so let us apportion blame justly and fairly and where it is due. Let us praise the councils, the 29 of 31, that submitted their decarbonisation zones. Is the Minister of State in a position to clarify whether 31 local authorities have now done it? Can he tell me why it has taken the Department so long? There is another question after this one and I might get a chance to elaborate on the tardiness of each Government to date and the Supreme Court judgment that forced the hand of the Government but at this point let us be fair and just. The decarbonisation plan has been sitting in the Department for two years.

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