Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. It is always nice to see him in this House. I want to say what I have been saying a number of times recently, in that I hope there will be no guillotining of this Bill on Committee Stage next week. It is a problem the guillotine is being overused, especially in this House. It is bringing our politics into disrepute. It is not consultative. It is not healthy and because the Government has a strong majority, we are seeing increasing recourse to the guillotining of legislation. I am concerned about that and other people are too.

We cannot talk up our politics at home and abroad and our healthy democratic system, if people can have amendments down to legislation which do not get considered, because the guillotine is being deployed with the support of a strong majority in Parliament. I ask the Minister to set an example on that issue. I am making it my business to oppose the Order of Business - for whatever good that will do - when it is proposed there will be guillotining of legislation, especially on Committee Stage.

I have quoted a phrase before in this House, which I am fond of, from my parents with regard to the climate: "We need to live simply, so that others may simply live." I have always said and believed we need to change our habits for the better, because our innate human dignity is linked to the health of the planet on which we live. A clean environment is vital to the full enjoyment of basic human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation.

This is a spiritual as well as practical issue. I read an interesting essay on this topic a number of years ago by the Minister's former party leader, Trevor Sargent, who drew on the ecological and environmental messages from the Bible. Pope Francis has also written an encyclical on the same theme, Laudato Si ': On Care For Our Common Home. It is because of this connection between how we view our environment and the question of human dignity, I have always supported reasonable measures to protect the environment and seek to change human habits and behaviours in ways which will not unduly penalise people for living their lives in a responsible way.

It is a question of intergenerational solidarity across time and international solidarity across space, in being concerned for the less fortunate people of this world who struggle to deal with the effects of climate change more than we do and for the next generation, so we do not cripple them as a result of our choices now. However, I am always worried by a lack of realism in debate on this issue and sometimes there is too much gesture politics, virtue-signalling and a desire to be seen to be doing something.

At the core of this Bill is the latest set of climate objectives, which sometimes seem to have been arbitrarily chosen.This time, it is that Ireland should be carbon neutral within 30 years, which is a mammoth task requiring massive and radical changes in agriculture, transport, industry and all aspects of our lives. However, the Government has not engaged in any discussion of whether we ought to be more realistic about what we can achieve on our own and whether we should be taking radical action when much larger countries with vastly greater emissions, both per capita and as a portion of the global total, are not doing likewise.

We generate just 0.1% of global emissions. It is one tenth of 1%. It is such a small fraction, it is difficult to visualise. Huge changes in this Bill will have a vanishingly small impact on the global situation, so they must not be presented as any kind of world-changing measures. It seems to me we have two options. We can accept no matter what we in Ireland do, climate change will have a serious impact on the lives of many people in other parts of the world in particular. We should therefore focus resources on improving our habits and helping and protecting those who are least able to protect themselves from the impacts of climate change.Or we can take a punt on massive, radical changes to our society and our economy, and devote immense resources in doing this, irrevocably changing the lives of many ordinary people, all on the off-chance that this will make a small difference in the grand scheme of things internationally. The Irish political and policymaking establishment has long since bought into the second option. We aspire to or, at least, pretend to make radical interventions in our society, in the vain hope that it will make an international difference. It might be noble of us, but it is not practical or realistic. It sometimes leads to absurd outcomes. For example, the Government has said it will demolish two perfectly viable power stations in the midlands, both of which are less than 25 years old. Meanwhile, China opens two new coal-driven power stations every week. We have stopped manufacturing peat briquettes in Ireland but now we import them from abroad. This is tear-your-hair-out stuff. It has gone far beyond head scratching. Where is the logic or consistency in these positions, on a national or international level?

I worry about the possibility of the occurrence of groupthink and a lack of critical thinking when all the main parties, as well as the various hard-left micro parties, supported this Bill in the Dáil uncritically. The only political party to oppose the Bill was Aontú. Just 12 Deputies voted against it, 11 of whom are Independents. Sometimes, on the Continent, that consensus is a sign of progress and political maturity. However, in Ireland, it often signifies something more negative, that we are dealing with bad legislation that has been pushed through by a political establishment with the help of a compliant media for the purposes of gesture politics and grandstanding. It usually means that some sector of society is losing out badly, and that sector is often voiceless. I refer to the case of the unborn in recent times. In normal times, the unborn would have had plenty of protectors in the Green Party, which talks about care of the Earth for the vulnerable. However, in these constrained times, everybody has to obey the command from on high and a whole sector of Irish society is not represented as a result. Children are now losing their lives, with the protection of the law. I fear that, in this case, it will be ordinary people, particularly those working in agriculture and industries connected to the generation of power, who will bear a disproportionate brunt.

I share the desire for a better world but I am worried about the reasonable practicalities and the impact on ordinary people. If I can be permitted, I will say two further things. First, is it really conceivable that bungalows and older houses in rural Ireland, such as the one I live in, can be retrofitted in the future, and that this is the best way to go? Second, do we need to have a conversation, even a tentative one, about whether nuclear power is part of our future in terms of reaching our carbon targets without devastating whole sectors of the economy and community life? I am asking the question; I am not making a statement. I know the Minister, to his credit, is open to discussion on this. I thank the Acting Chair for his indulgence.