Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

Of course, it is a shame. We advocate that there should be, and I advocated that at the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe committee was pushing for agreement but there has been none. The process has moved to Durban where there might yet be legal agreement.

I am not sure we should be too far ahead of the posse on this issue. While we should lead, we should not do so by tying our hands behind our backs and creating unrealistic situations. To a degree, this might yet prove to be an Irish solution to an Irish problem. To reach the required targets proposed in the legislation we will, at a minimum, depend on huge imports of energy from abroad generated by nuclear power, or we might require our own nuclear power station to achieve them. I am sure the Green Party would shudder at the thought of nuclear power, yet under this legislation we might well develop great reliance on it. That is how the UK is doing it and why it has lower targets. I invite the Minister of State to conduct a little existential or personal reflection on that before proceeding.