Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)

It is clear that there is a lot of work already under way on planning. I welcome that. There will be over 250 meetings in Ireland over a short period of time. It is going to be intense, as we saw before, in 2013. It is an opportunity for the country as we take a leadership role in steering the EU agenda for that period of time and dealing with some of the challenges that confront us collectively across the EU bloc. The Minister mentioned stakeholders. At the climate committee yesterday, the question was raised as to how members of the committee could in some way help shape the agenda of those six months from a climate, energy and environmental perspective. The current US Administration has unfortunately turned its face against renewable energy but, in the long term, the European Union could take a leadership position in an area like that. How could an Oireachtas committee or other groups feed into that agenda?

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