David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The issue of climate change is the biggest challenge facing our generation and we have a responsibility to take action. Unfortunately, Ireland's five year action plan on climate change expired in 2012 and we are now in 2015. The Bill is weak and very much the work of Mr. Phil Hogan and Fine Gael. I cannot commend a Bill which has so many shortcomings because it would not do justice to the issue of climate change. It will or will not make a real tangible difference, and we have to be honest in our assessment. It is a big disappointment in terms of what it seeks to achieve and the lack of targets, something which is glaringly obvious.

It is disappointing that is no definition of a "low carbon economy" in the Bill, which is vague in terms of sectoral allocations and targets. The Bill is not adequate in terms of following on from the action plan on climate change which ended in 2012. It had specific targets based on the Kyoto protocol. There is no excuse, particularly in light of the fact that the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht had all-party support to make sure that targets were set. The Bill could have been a lot better. In the committee there seemed to be support from all parties for a much more substantial Bill, yet it falls short. I do not know why that is the case.

It is worthwhile comparing the report of the committee with the Bill in order to highlight the deficiencies. The main fault, as I said, is that it does not include setting targets. The report also recommends that the annual emission limits for the period from 2020 to 2050 should be the same as those agreed by member states under the European Union roadmap 2050, with this embedded in the legislation.

There has been some debate about the likely implications of the climate change strategy for the agricultural sector, and rightly so. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Coveney, referred to the need to take account of the particular importance of the food sector. The committee report also recognised the strategic national importance of the agricultural sector and that we must also recognise that climate change has an adverse effect on the community and farming incomes.

One of the weaknesses in the Bill is that local authorities and development are not included, something I find odd. Local authorities should have been given a significant role with regard to a mitigation plan. Within those mitigation plans there should be a large role for local governance. As somebody who sat on an SPC in Waterford City Council which examined climate change, I found local authorities are very limited in what they can do because they lack powers in some areas. When I read the Bill, it struck me that the fact we have not taken the opportunity to give more powers to local government to strengthen its role in setting and realising targets for climate change is a glaring omission.

The most serious defect in the Bill is that while the report recommended that legislation should contain mitigation plans to address emissions, the Bill only provides for the drawing up of such plans. That is not the role of the Bill. Legislation is about setting the statutory parameters for State action, rather than acting as a discussion document on paper or to establish a discussion forum, as the Bill appears to do. We have had enough discussion and debate - we had plenty of that over many years in the Dáil and Seanad, as well as in the committee where it was agreed we would do something more substantial. The question of why we have not moved beyond that in this Bill is for the Government to answer.

A substantial body of work on what is needed has been drawn up and agreed across party lines, through the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht. Instead, we have a Bill that appears to be ticking boxes, perhaps to appear as if the issue is being dealt with, when in fact we are only creating new and vague substitutes for planning and implementing the measures that are required to address the global problem in our national context.

The Minister has followed his predecessor's attitude to climate change, which is represented in the Bill. The big disappointment for Sinn Féin is the fact that there is no definition of "low carbon economy" and it is vague on sectoral allocations and targets. We welcome the five year plans, but these must be debated and improved upon by the Houses of the Oireachtas. As I said, we must get everybody on board on this issue. It is not only a matter for the Government. Rather, it must bring the Opposition and society with it on this issue, as well as industry, agriculture, construction, transport and local authorities. The Minister is responsible for local authorities and there will be no success-----