Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

4. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change and Green Economy last met. [39243/13]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

5. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet sub Committee on Climate Change and Green Economy will next meet. [42214/13]

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

6. To ask the Taoiseach the number of times the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change and Green Economy has met since the summer recess. [45918/13]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 4, 5 and 6 together.

The Cabinet Committee on Climate Change and the Green Economy last met on 5 November 2012. At this meeting, the Cabinet committee considered an extensive work programme that has been under way during 2013 and which included work on preparing the climate action and low carbon development Bill; preparation of national and sectoral low-carbon roadmaps to 2050; preparation of Ireland's input to international climate change negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and implementation of a range of actions to support jobs and growth in the green economy.

This work programme is overseen by senior officials from a number of Departments who meet on a regular basis. The Cabinet committee is scheduled to meet again later this month, on 25 November, when I expect it will consider the progress that has been made on the extensive work programme, and any issues arising.

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We have just over six minutes left and have three people with questions.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Is the Ceann Comhairle going to take each question and response individually?

Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

No, we will take the questions from each Deputy and then allow the Taoiseach to respond.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's response sums it up. The Cabinet Committee on Climate Change and the Green Economy has met only once in 12 months. The last time this committee met was on 5 November 2012, over a year ago. In the meantime, we have had major work by the UN and the climate change panel and definitive conclusions in terms of human responsibility for a dramatically changing planet, with grave consequences for agriculture, food production and so on. The impact of climate change already being felt in many countries across the globe is devastating. We have seen changes in climate, drought in Africa, wars arising from drought and so forth.

In the Irish context, much as I regret to say it, it seems the Government will be known as the one that cared least about climate change in recent times. There is no sense that the Government has a climate change agenda. It is as if this is something we can dismiss and put to one side. This is reflected in the Climate Change Bill. The failure to include strategic targets for 2050 is a further exposure of failure on the part of the Minister, Deputy Hogan, to rise to the challenge of climate change. I accept the fact that climate change is a challenging issue, but the fact the committee has only met once speaks for itself.

People have roundly condemned the Climate Change Bill, but I do not know whether the committee will meet to discuss it again. The previous Government published a far more ambitious Bill, into which many people had an input, in 2010. When the Labour Party was in opposition in 2009, it produced legislation with clear targets and argued strongly for legislation that would include objectives, targets and goals.

Will the Taoiseach confirm that the committee will meet far more often in the coming 12 months and that the Government will become far more engaged than it has been with the climate change agenda? An attempt has been made to demonise people involved in the climate change and green agenda generally in the past 12 to 15 months, to which the Government has been a party, as has the Minister. The fact that the committee has met only once speaks volumes for the Government's lack of commitment to tackling this very serious issue.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's answer that the committee on climate change and the green economy has met only once gives the lie to the claims he made earlier about the Government's commitment to employment creation because clearly when it comes to doing the practical work to deliver on promises the Taoiseach made in the programme for Government about the potential to create a huge number of jobs in the renewable energy sector, the green economy and through NewERA - a figure of 100,000 jobs was mentioned - the committee is not even meeting on a regular basis to discuss how the Government can deliver on them. Contrary to the Taoiseach's earlier suggestions, some of us on this side of the House have been very specific in making suggestions on how the Government could deliver on its own promises to deliver jobs in the green economy. During the debate on the Private Members' motion I tabled on forestry we argued about the huge potential to create tens of thousands of jobs if we delivered on our own agreed targets for afforestation, a public works programme in this regard, provided for investment through semi-State companies in areas such as renewable energy and afforestation. The Government speaks about the pay-as-you-save scheme, but it has not rolled it out. Many jobs could be created through a major installation programme and it could contribute to meeting our climate change targets for 2020 and 2050 which the EPA now believes we will not do because the Government is not taking it seriously as an environmental issue or an area in which we could generate desperately needed employment. The hope that it will arrive from the heavens in the form of foreign direct investment if we are nice and do not ask companies to pay any tax is not materialising. We have told the Taoiseach that we need to use semi-State companies as major vehicles for public investment in public works programmes in strategic areas of industry, particularly the green economy. The Government is failing to do this and even failing to meet to discuss it. This is useless.

Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

This is appalling in view of all that has happened in the past six to 12 months with regard to climate change and all the signs that urgent action is needed to control and modify the effects of industrial capitalism and the hunt for profit at the expense of our environment and resources. We need to curb, control and change this, yet the committee has met only once. Is it not the reality that just about the only policy the Government could trot out on climate change was to increase the price of petrol? That sums it up. Is this not lazy and unimaginative and imposing hardship on people who need their cars for work? Is it not clear that we need proactive policies and investment to structurally reduce emissions and pollution in the economy? I suggest to the Taoiseach, notwithstanding his attempt to deride rather than to answer serious points from the socialists in Parliament, that a programme of retrofitting homes throughout the country with regard to energy saving insulation and water saving measures should be undertaken to be financed by a 1% emergency tax on the wealthiest 1% or 5% which would raise €2.9 billion. This could create 60,000 to 70,000 jobs for such projects. Is this not a constructive proposal, but one which the Taoiseach will not entertain because it would affect the wealthy supporters of his party and his ideology and he will not afflict them as opposed to afflicting the working class and the poor?

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Cabinet committees generally meet if an issue will arise before the Government. We have already dealt with the climate change Bill and rather than having specific targets which will lead to one being in court on a regular basis if they are not achieved and given that the target date is 2050, it is better to set principles and objectives at which a Government can aim. The Minister published the outline heads of the climate action and low carbon development Bill. He is co-ordinating the development of national and sectoral low carbon road maps and much work is ongoing at interdepartmental level with the United Nations in respect of the Warsaw conference due to take place later this month.

We are all cognisant of the scientific response on new commercial waterways being opened in the Arctic because of melting, changes to the jetstream, the fluctuations in temperature in the Atlantic, the beginning of a European and US response to a study of the ocean, the movement of waters, the management of stocks, the fluctuations on the seabed and mortality rates among fish. All of these issues are important.

I agree with Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett for once. The pay-as-you-save scheme is not as simple as it looks. The Government made available €35 million to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources for the scheme, but it is not as simple to implement it in reality as was originally intended. Water saving is an issue. On the Continent people have had to install collection tanks for rainwater for many years as part of the normal planning process. One will find it happening here too to a far greater extent as time passes. Water meters are being installed, a process which will employ 5,000 people and have consequences.

When we speak about the €7 billion bill for the importation of fossil fuels, people always tell me that they want jobs by the thousand throughout the country, but we have a marked reluctance to deal with the importation of gas and the provision of pylons and turbines. People have every right, of course, and there must be sensitivity for the environment, but there must also be practicality in the sense that one cannot provide power without cables and we will not have the jobs and prosperity we need unless we invest in infrastructure and facilities to deal with this investment. It is a case of having a good compromise worked out in everybody's interests. I will raise this issue at the next meeting of the Cabinet committee on climate change which is due to meet on 25 November.