Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I also welcome the Bill to the Seanad, finally. Once this Bill passes all Stages the work truly begins to transform Ireland into a leader on climate action. For the first time in the history of the State targets will be put into law. It is a momentous time for us not just in the Green Party but across government and society. I could list all of the things that I have done as an activist over many decades but the fundamental point comes down to this because it is a point that unites us all. When I was in primary school we learned about greenhouse gas emissions and what products we should or should not buy to fix the problem, which even then seemed insurmountable. That is decades ago now and emissions continue to rise. It is five years since the Paris Agreement and still emissions rise, with slight reductions every so often along the way, including 6% last year, albeit in the middle of a pandemic.

What has been going wrong? It seems clear that a comprehensive plan that does not rely on individuals to step up to the plate alone but forces governments to step up with them and to put in place infrastructure and supports is what is required. That is what we are doing in government, and this Bill and support across the political spectrum is crucial. For decades now the climate crisis has been seen as being about building better consumers and that we should be cajoled and persuaded to buy better products, and Ireland has not been alone in this approach. However, the topic of which food and consumer goods help and hinder climate recovery is complicated for us as individuals. It is often about balancing and diversifying land use, which must be done at a macro level. The reality is that, especially in this country, many people just do not have all of the options available to them, namely, public and active transport, support in implementing energy efficiency or indeed the money to make the switch. That is where this Bill and political leadership comes in.

When we in the Green Party went into coalition negotiations, an average reduction of 7% a year in emissions was the biggest factor in persuading me to go into government. When one looks into how to do that, which we are currently doing on the climate action committee, it is clear that there are choices but only by putting that reduction into law will we ensure everyone is serious about that ambitious target. This Bill is the key to locking that reduction in. It was a mammoth task to get this Bill to where it is today. I sit on the climate action committee, which carried out the work of scrutinising this legislation, chaired by my colleague, Deputy Leddin, along with Senators Dooley, Higgins, McGahon and Boylan, and I commend all 14 members of that committee. There has been some amount of rubbish spouted in the Dáil about people not being involved. It was open to everyone to come to the committee to question witnesses and many of those who tabled amendments on Committee Stage in the Lower House did not even show up to speak to them.

There were times in this process when I was worried we would be out of government before we got it over the line. Many people, including politicians, underestimate what goes into producing a Bill such as this. There are negotiations before entering into government, there are negotiations after entering into government, there are hours and weeks of work by advisers and researchers, there is legal advice and in this case there was the longest period of pre-legislative scrutiny by Deputies and Senators ever with months of scrutiny. We heard from national and international witnesses on climate law and we spent week after week, day after day drafting and redrafting a report with our recommendations. I put in many myself and stuck to my guns but we also needed to compromise. Then the Bill had to be redrafted based on those 78 recommendations, the majority of which are in the Bill before the House. Again, legal advice was sought and the Bill went to the Dáil and back to the climate committee and now on to us here in the Upper House, and it will be another couple of weeks before it comes out of the Seanad. We thought it would be done and dusted by Christmas. However, this careful scrutiny worked well for this Bill because we must bring everybody with us. It is important for a sustainable, climate-neutral future to allay fears, to put in place supports and to consider action from everyone’s perspective.

We need climate and intergenerational justice and I believe the strength of this Government but more particularly of this legislation is that it is one of the most ambitious climate Bills in the world and yet it was overwhelmingly supported by public representatives who represent diverse interests across the State. We must bring people with us into this green future and that is what this Bill does.The actions we can take for climate change are the actions that will make all our lives better. We need to prepare rural Ireland for a future based on climate action. Small farmers in the west have been let down by the actions that have been taken but they can benefit from the supports we put in place. It was announced today that some 170 schools will be given funding to ensure that they have active transport at their doorstep. These actions are what will make the difference and they will build on this Bill.