Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am moved to strongly disagree with the Minister of State. In fact, I believe the Minister of State has made the case for these changes to be necessary. We are talking about Ministers retiring as if we are chasing. I am reminded of when people are talking about mother and baby homes. They say the nuns are all gone and ask who we are chasing after. The point is not whether Ministers have come and gone and have retired or were in government. Many of the colleagues of the Minister of State were in government during the past decade and are in government again now. It is not a completely new slate. We have the same Ministers in many cases.

The fact is that these judicial cases have had an impact. They have had an impact on inadequate strategies in Ireland. Climate Case Ireland had a major impact. These cases have had a strong impact in the Netherlands. There is a reason why companies there are suddenly trying to move cheese manufacturing to Ireland. It is because they have been pulled up and are required to meet higher targets in the courts. Again, it comes back to the constant idea of needing to get the public with us and on board.The public are ahead of the Government in many areas of this issue. It is citizens who have demanded more from their governments in many cases around the world. They have done it by saying they take seriously the words governments put down in law, they want governments to take those words seriously and they are demanding governments follow through on them. That is why we are talking about this. I want good legislation that delivers, Governments to deliver on that legislation and for us as parliamentarians to hold them to account. This amendment is a safety net. The Government will not want to be taken to court but this Bill has a limited liability clause. It reduces some of the areas of accountability that already exist and at the same time, the Government proposes to introduce investor courts. In respect of many of the companies listed in sections 20 and 21 that have prospecting, extraction or exploration licences, we are saying if they have an existing arrangement, they might get a new arrangement. Many of them have a track record of taking cases against governments to slow down climate action. There are clear records of obstructing climate action. When we seek to strengthen litigation and the power of litigation, and nobody loves courts in that context, we do so to ensure citizens have a chance of some form of an equality of arms against the very well resourced legal pressures applied by corporations, which want to milk and squeeze a last five or ten years of profits out of the world. That is what is happening and can be seen, for example, in the Gulf of Mexico. In terms of accountability, the 2050 target is justiciable but, unfortunately, the 2030 target is not. We will shortly come to discuss the way it has been worded. It is there for the advisory council to propose but it is not there in the same robust way . I hope we can make it robust and the Minister of State manages to deliver out to the 51% reduction target but we are moving that power out of the Bill where it belongs in proper law into an amorphous political negotiations base. Again, that is why we are talking about the courts. It is not a romanticised vision; it is because there is a reality whereby very strong actors are using legal and financial pressure to slow the actions we need. We want to make sure there is a counter-pressure coming on Government that will then empower the Government to do what it needs to do to get us towards our targets.