Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Mary White, to the House. She is a great person for coming to the House and I am sure she will take on board the comments of Senators and bring them back to the Minister. Everyone is in agreement that there must be a climate change Bill. However, many important issues could be dealt with and discussed before such dramatic legislation is introduced. Senator Coffey pointed out that there is no plan. There should be a plan and the climate to bring about change regardless of legislation. There should be a realistic plan to achieve targets with buy-in from stakeholders such as the agri-sector and the business sector. What has the Government done? It is negligent in setting targets and bringing forward plans. Smart metering is not being rolled out. Our waste management plan is a shambles. There is no such plan in this country and if there is, I would like to hear about it. Where are we in respect of connection to the national grid? What is the position in regard to foreshore licences? I refer in particular to offshore wind and wave energy generation. These are the most important issues that should be dealt with before we introduce legislation such as this. They should be addressed before rushing this legislation through the Houses without having spoken to the stakeholders involved who have a major input to make in the framing of this legislation. As a speaker said, in terms of food harvest targets, it is estimated there will be €4 billion earned from extra exports by 2020. This will result in a 12% rise in emissions in the agriculture sector and at best only a 4% reduction in emissions that can be achieved in that sector. If this country is to survive, it will be heavily dependent on the agricultural sector and the agribusiness sector for growth, on the processing sector and on added value in agricultural products.

Milk quotas will be lost by 2015. The agricultural sector is a big culprit in terms of emissions purely as a result of the size of our national herd. Teagasc has estimated that a decrease of 84% in our suckler cow herd would be required to fulfil the requirements proposed and to comply with the targets that have been set. Senator Ó Brolcháin said he was surprised by the number of speakers whose seats are located behind his who want to speak on this Bill. Is that any wonder? Those speakers are not present now but they want to contribute to this debate because of the alarming statistics involved.