Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Senator Coffey raised the attack by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security. I do not have a problem with the Minister having a go at a committee if he wishes to do so. However, what he said was, in all fairness, completely wrong. The Minister said:

...the Oireachtas committee we set up has been used as a talking shop as a means to give adversarial comment and to knock the Government. That is not what it was set up for, which was to get a political consensus. I am very disappointed in this.

When I challenged the Minister to explain this, he went on to say:

Members of the Labour Party and other Opposition parties are using the committee not to achieve consensus but rather in the most adversarial way. Their only goal is to bash the Government ... I had hoped it would develop a consensus on these major issues.

As an Independent Member disinterested in this argument, that is a completely unfair and an unjust criticism with no basis in fact. Far from existing to bash the Government, the committee has time and again produced consensus reports on issues such as the foreshore licensing Bill. It is the only joint committee in the history of the Houses to produce and present to Government legislation in support of Government policy.

It produced another - Fine Gael was the driving force - on electric cars, which supported the Government's position. A report on climate change, driven by the Labour Party in the main, also supported the Government. The committee has done ground-breaking work on emissions and other things. I hope Senator Boyle does not try to defend the Minister's remarks. If the Minister was wrong, he should be big enough to say so. His remarks were demoralising to a committee which already feels it is being ignored by Government. I ask for a debate on the work of Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security when those of us who are members of the committee can show the Minister why we are disappointed that the Government has chosen to ignore the consensus worked out in the committee in support of Government policy.

I would also like to make passing reference to the proposed British royal visit. This occasion begs for a debate on nationalism and republicanism and on the narrow introspection of nationalism, which refuses to encompass the broader view of the world of Tone republicanism of Catholic, Protestant and dissenter. It appears we are about to invite the direct descendant of one of the founders of one of the great Protestant religions to visit this country.