Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Is fear gnóthach é lena lán rudaí le déanamh, go háirithe leis an by-election, agus aviation agus gach rud eile. Níl mé ag cur moille air.

This Bill is something I have dreamt of for 30 years. It is a time to thank people. The people I want to thank most are the children. It is the children who inspire us. When I hold babies I say to myself that we should keep going. They give us conviction and remind us of what we must do. We know most of us will not live to see the real repercussions of climate change. I first and foremost want to thank all the children who have taken part in the Green Schools committees, which have been in place for more than 20 years, and who have gone home and pestered their parents about turning off lights, recycling and walking to school. We owe them a massive debt of gratitude. Those committees normalised and spread environmental education. Such education was not in place when we were young. The NGOs also have done great work in educating people. Much of it has been done through the schools but we must acknowledge and be grateful the ripple effect the children have had. They have vision and focus and believe that if there is a problem, we simply should be solving it. Many children have asked me down the years why are we doing that and not doing this? The solutions are all there. This planet Bill, when it finally gets enacted, will see a much better country and more positive, hopeful children. Currently, they are not hopeful but this Bill can give children hope. When we get this Bill passed, every Department will have to take climate change seriously.

This debate takes me back about 25 years ago when I met a lad from Longford called John Crossan who decided he would recycle hundreds of thousands of cans and use the money from recycling aluminium to buy native Irish trees. We would walk around Ireland planting trees with schoolchildren. He had that vision long before anybody else had it. At the time we felt like outliers or misfits. This Bill normalises and brings into the centre all those environmental issues we have been harking on about in the Green Party and in the NGOs for many years. Now every party has policies around biodiversity and climate change. It is a day of hope for me, as a person who has been a worrier and has lost sleep over climate issues for many years. We have all seen the documentaries. Now everybody wants to do the right thing but we cannot leave it to the individuals any more. We need to govern. We are the State and we need to make the choices easier. We need to make it really easy for people. Every civil servant at every level of every Department and local authority has to take this seriously. We have clear targets that will be in place for the next three Governments. It will not make any difference who is in or is not in government. Everybody will have to play ball and finally take climate change seriously.

The Bill will normalise climate change. For too long the approach was to give a pat on the head to the green people and the ecowarriors and to say it is lovely what they were doing that little green project over there somewhere on the left field. It is great now that every party has caught up. The NGOs worked very hard for years. Then we had the Citizens' Assembly on climate change involving 99 randomly picked people, which was amazing. One cannot say they were biased in any way but they came up much of the basis and roots of this Bill. That is important, as this Bill represents everybody. It is not just a green issue that we made up. This is something that needed to happen for many years. It is important we acknowledge the work of that assembly. The climate committee, as my colleague Senator Pauline O'Reilly said, brought members of all parties and none together and heard from experts and NGOs. There has been much listening, debate and involvement in this Bill. It is probably the Bill that has involved the most people in any Bill in my lifetime It was not rushed. It has taken years. The assembly was established in 2016. It is a great day now that we are moving on to the next stage. I want to thank the Green Party and in particular the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, for staying focused and having this vision for so long, which is what inspired environmental activists like myself to get involved in politics to see what I could do to ensure this issue was taken seriously.