Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry; I am being very serious. I am talking about what our colleagues in the US Senate discussed all of last night, which was climate change, in an effort to get people to stop laughing about it, as those on the Government benches have just done, and to take the issue very seriously. We have a day on Thursday with nothing to do, so why not open up on Thursday and emulate our colleagues in the US Senate by having a full-scale debate on climate change. We have seen the effects of climate change in recent weeks and months, with extraordinary weather patterns causing flooding, damage and devastation throughout the country. We have seen strange weather patterns in previous years also, with very cold weather during the winter and very warm weather last summer. This is causing huge damage to society and it is causing worse damage in poorer parts of the world. We have an obligation to emulate our colleagues and to look at what they are doing, and we have a free day when we should be working. If we had an all-day debate on climate change we could move that debate forward, and perhaps parliaments around the world will copy the example of the US Senate and have that debate. It would be a worthwhile way of spending our day.