Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of discussing the Energy Charter Treaty. I raised this issue twice last April, once with the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and once with the Tánaiste. I was none the wiser about the Government's stance on the obvious detrimental effects of this treaty other than that it would hide behind the EU for political cover. During Leaders' Questions, I put it to the Tánaiste and he said it was clear, there was no doubt the direction of travel by the European Commission and most, though not all, member states of the EU is towards net zero. It seems that after years of failing to meet our already woefully inadequate climate targets, Ireland will fall into the category of "not all" with regard to moving towards net zero. I asked for the chance to make statements on this issue then and I am glad we have the chance to do so now. Back then, I raised the case of the German company, RWE, suing the Dutch Government for €1.4 billion for phasing out coal, despite the fact that RWE itself was undergoing a phasing-out of coal. A case has been taken against Ireland, as was mentioned, for $100 million by Lansdowne Oil and Gas, owned by Larry Goodman, who is part of the 1% who own most of the wealth in this country.

We are facing a climate breakdown and possibly the end of life on this planet, at least as we know it, in the not-too-distant future. We saw the devastating effects across the country over the past few weeks. Globally, the consequences of our failure to act on climate are becoming clearer. Island countries are disappearing, countries are being battered by extreme weather events and flooding and drought and famine will continue to get worse until we start to take real action to address the underlying economic conditions at the heart of this climate crisis.

We live on a finite planet yet we continue to prop up a failing economic model that cannot exist without constant growth and profits. Most of that growth and those profits go to an increasingly small elite of billionaires at the top of society. Why are we not stopping to think? Why do we allow the economic system, which is destroying our planet, which caused the 2008 banking collapse and enforced austerity on all of us and which daily immiserates billions in the global south and fails to even produce a decent standard of living for most in the global north, to continue? There is no way out of this climate crisis without a serious, radical redress of how our economic system works. At the heart of this is profit. Profit rules the world. It has eaten away at living standards and is destroying our planet. Despite this, the Government has clung to an energy treaty which allows multibillion-euro fossil fuel companies, which are making record profits out of destroying our planet, to sue us for restricting their ability to make even more money out of destroying the planet.

Was the chance of losing €100 million in taxpayers' money not enough to get us to withdraw this summer? That is €100 million in taxpayers' money that could be paid to a fossil fuel company for lost profits while we miss climate target after climate target, for which we have to pay more taxpayers' money.

Not only do we need to end this constant profiteering which is destroying the planet; we should not be party to any treaty that allows billionaires to sue us for lost profits, be it CETA, T-TIP or the ECT. Not a cent of taxpayers' money should go on lost profits. The people of Ireland do not want it and have made that clear. The modernisation process of the treaty has failed. Countries are leaving in their droves, including Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. There is no support left for this treaty.

The Government needs to stop hiding behind the EU, leave the treaty, start taking the real steps needed to tackle the climate crisis before it is too late and make the fossil fuel companies and billionaires who are destroying this planet pay for it. The comment made by the previous speaker was very appropriate. We should be talking about appropriation, not compensation.

See this speech in context