Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)

I am glad to hear about the Government's focus on accelerating what we are doing. However, the fact remains that we are not meeting our climate targets. While there was a 6% reduction in emissions in 2023, there was only a 2% reduction in 2024. The EPA is saying we are going backwards. This is because we are seeing significantly slower progress than needed on many fronts, like onshore wind, offshore wind, electric vehicles, district heating and the use of biomethane, not to mention the impact of the new LNG fossil fuel terminals the Government is promoting and the data centres that are not required to use renewable energy.

We are told all the time that money is no object to our taking action on climate. Will the Government please pull out all the stops with the new national development plan? Will it invest in the infrastructure we need to mitigate the climate crisis, including our water pipe network, which is so bad it is not able to ensure people have water right after a month of abnormally heavy rain? I ask the Government, please, to invest in our future and to support legislation to establish a future generations commissioner, who will challenge the short-termism we have seen from too many Governments and embed future thinking across government.

Will the revised national development plan will be framed to ensure we meet our climate targets? Will the Tánaiste commit to addressing the environmental investment gap?

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