Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)

I acknowledge Deputy Heneghan, who is on the flotilla along with other Irish citizens. We wish them all well and hope for their safety.

This Government's response to me on climate is another classic exercise in deflection. We heard it earlier during the Government's response to the motion on child poverty and child homelessness. It was deflection and side stepping. Of course this Government is not as bad as Trump on climate but there has been a noticeable shift away from taking climate seriously. I mentioned the road building issue. Let us look at LNG as well. This summer, the Minister for climate wrote to the planning regulator giving a green light to LNG, a light that is green in the metaphorical sense only because it is a policy U-turn at a time when this country faces up to €26 billion in fines for failing to achieve our legally binding climate targets. With respect, we know Minister O'Brien has form for missing targets. He was the housing Minister in the previous Government and the approach to climate targets in this Government reminds me of Fianna Fáil's reliance on inflated home delivery targets during the last general election campaign.

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