Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also thank Deputies Pringle, Connolly and Joan Collins. The motion is a piece of work that is necessary and needs to be put in front of us. We all know what is necessary in making sure we steer in the correct direction. At times that is legislation, at times it is regulation, and sometimes it is even sanction.

We are, unfortunately, as Deputy Ó Laoghaire said, almost happy with what has come out of COP28. That is because we have very low expectations. We have a slight improved trajectory as regards what COP is asking for but we have next to nothing near the commitments, even in language, that we should have. That should not be a great shock, based on who is there and where it is located. It is fair to say that there may be some who have a conflict of interest.

Let us deal with the work proposed by the motion. We are talking about the amendment of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018 to widen its reach so it is applicable to all funds within ISIF. It is necessary that we do not add to the problem, and that we ensure State moneys are not part of moneys travelling through here that maintain industries directly connected to fossil fuels, when we need to make the journey and transition away from them. The motion also references endorsement of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty and removal of the exclusionary clause in section 49A of the NTMA Act.

We all know the direction we need to go in. We all know that the only way this works is on the basis of the moneys provided, the efforts made and the direction taken by governments across the board. It cannot be a case of money chasing profit . We need to ensure we cut that off where the State is involved, particularly, as much as we can, in relation to fossil fuels. We all accept that in doing all of this will not deliver a utopia of decarbonisation. We know what has not happened in the past while. One can insert single transferable speech on how Ireland could be a wind superpower, but we all know that the RESS auctions have not exactly produced what they need to. We also know that we do not quite have the planning system we need in place. We know that those who want to invest talk about the issues that exist in the context of delivering. We know we are unlikely to deliver on any of our targets at this point in time. Really and truly, we need to get our act together and ensure that we have decent regulation and that we enforce it. We must also do the heavy lifting ourselves. We all know the issues: it is everything including ports not being in play, not having our planning system resourced sufficiently and the fact that we have not made the final moves on the entire framework that is necessary for offshore wind. We need to get that done as soon as possible.

Let us be clear. We all understand the importance of legislation, regulation and, at times, sanction. We will all welcome some of the language from COP28 but we welcome the fact that 153 members of the UN General Assembly have called for a ceasefire. It is mad that it is considered a success to have asked for a ceasefire in Gaza because of the disgraceful moves that were made by the United States of America. There are 16 countries from the European Union who have voted alongside us for a ceasefire. It goes without saying that we need to make sure we get the EU Council to make a move in that direction.

See this speech in context