Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I cannot accept the amendment. I read the judgment, which was very interesting. As I recall, the issue regarding the role of the Government was not presented as one of the main arguments in the appellant's original presentation. The judge drew it out in his judgment. The judgment relates to the 2015 Act, which is being fundamentally changed and altered by this Bill. As Senator Higgins has referred to, the proposed new section 3(3) says that "The Minister and the Government shall carry out their respective functions [...] in a manner [...] that is consistent with the [...] United Nations Framework". That is a fundamentally stronger and more powerful requirement on the Government and Ministers than had existed in the 2015 Act. If one goes down through the Bill to see how this applies to those respective functions, the critical one relates to the devising, evolution and updating of a climate action plan and the setting of the climate strategy. The proposed new section 4(8) specifies that both the Minister and the Government must have regard to all of those other requirements we mentioned earlier with regard to just transition and so on. Both of them must take the requirements into account. Critically, the Government, as the approving body, is cited at centre stage with regard to the approval of the carbon budgets and a whole range of other respective functions. It is a fundamentally different Bill which will amend the existing Act in a way which addresses any questions that could arise from that judgment. Therefore, I will not accept the amendment.