Seanad debates

Thursday, 3 March 2022

Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed)

 

10:30 am

Photo of Lynn BoylanLynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not know whether it is because spring is in the air but this week in the House we have agreed on many issues, such as offering solidarity to Ukraine and today with Linda Ervine. The Minister can hear there is a united front on addressing concerns for workers and farmers and the compensation scheme. He can also hear from everybody who is speaking that we are all desperately trying to put forward credible solutions. They have all been ruled out of order. Everybody has engaged in the process and has tried to be constructive and table various measures the Minister could avail of to help these workers and farmers.

For example, we tabled a suggestion on the environmental impact assessment. We fear there is low-balling on the cost of demolition and, as Senator Higgins said, on refurbishment. The lowest carbon building is the one already in existence. We tabled concerns about the compensation scheme. Senator Crowe spoke about this. There is a five-year calculation rather than what happens in other jurisdictions, which is a ten-year calculation. We are an outlier with other jurisdictions that have already done this. The five-year period seems to coincide with a downturn in the industry. Is this convenient? I would like to hear why the Minister is choosing a five-year period and not a ten-year period when it is the standard as to how this is done.

We have issues with specified assets. Another amendment we tabled was on the training scheme. My colleague, Deputy Carthy, and I are very familiar with the EU globalisation funds put in place. When big multinational corporations moved from one jurisdiction in the EU to others, this funding was put in place to train workers and upskill them. Why can this not be done on a much smaller scale through SOLAS? I do not understand why this cannot be accepted as a credible proposal.

To get to the crux of it, I am climate activist. I engage with the Committee on the Environment and Climate Action. We have fought very hard to get legally binding targets. I am very concerned that many people in government speak about a just transition but they do not really understand what a just transition is. If we are to fall now at the first hurdle, which is with a handful of workers, when it comes to the scale of change the State is facing in reaching our carbon emission targets, I am not just concerned for the workers we are speaking about today and for the farmers in the Chamber but also I am very concerned we are going to lose the public on this. Whatever about Senator Gavan being from Limerick, I am from Tallaght. We definitely do not have fur farmers there.

How can an elected representative go into rural Ireland and say this is how the Government views a just transition but not even talk to the workers? They will be offered statutory redundancy. The Government will make sure the compensation comes in at the lowest possible nomination. I would not like to be the Minister going into any rural community trying to sell a just transition if that is what it means to the Government. I urge the Minister to listen to people in the House who are genuinely concerned for the workers and farmers here today and about the message it sends out to all of the other communities and sectors that will have to make radical changes if we are to meet our carbon emission targets and our carbon budgets in the very short window we have to do so. I urge the Minister to sit down with the workers and negotiate a package that is fair and just.

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