Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I had the pleasure of sitting on the climate change committee in the last Oireachtas on behalf of Fianna Fáil and I was probably in the minority in that we were in opposition, yet I supported the principle of carbon tax. We were not in government and we did not have to do it, but we did so because it was the right thing to do. I very much welcome the fact the Greens are part of government and that they have brought forward certain elements that will help us to address the climate crisis.

I have always advocated that we need to take the climate change debate away from environmentalists and academics. For sure, the science is there but if we start getting into the science of anything, we lose the vast majority of the population. That is not to suggest in any way that they do not understand it, because they do, but it is about how it impacts on their life. The vast majority of people I meet every day of the week fully understand where we are at with the climate crisis. They do not need to hear from the IPCC and they do not need to hear about targets. They just know there is a problem. They see the significant changes, they see famine in sub-Saharan Africa, they see it encroaching on arable lands in those regions and they see the migration issues that fly from that.They see it in their own back gardens. They see the very significant change in weather patterns. I do not want to get academic about this, but we all know that weather patterns change over certain cycles and they are not always cognisant of or consistent with climate change. When we have seen such diversity over a critical period of time, people are starting to accept that something is amiss. The science and evidence back that up.

We park that and then ask people how, from a farming perspective, they are going to address the continued pressure on an annual basis in terms of the supply of fodder for cattle in order to keep animals over the winter. This has come into sharp focus this year because we would normally expect to import significant amounts of grain from Ukraine. That will not happen because the grain will not be planted there. We are heading towards a crisis unless we are fortunate with the weather.

Senator Garvey and I are familiar with areas of Clare where we were told 15 or 20 years ago that flooding was a once in 100-year event. Just two years later, there was a another once in 100-year event. There are once in 50-year events. The average punter may not have a depth of scientific research behind him or her when commenting, but he or she knows full well there is a problem.

There is a significant problem with our debate around biodiversity and the practices that have developed which have lent themselves in a negative way to our environment. For the continuation of farming it is important that we change our ways. It is not about reducing things. In these debates, we get into an argument about how many cattle people want to cull and when the size of the national herd will be reduced. That is the sort of binary debate that some in the media love to engage in. They are doing so at the moment on the question of whether we should wear masks and who is right or wrong. Let us understand that we have a problem and need to reduce our carbon output. That is all. How we do that is up to the different systems that will operate within various sectors. Carbon budgets provide a good model for doing that.

The job of the Opposition is to highlight all that is wrong, but when carbon budgets are published it would be welcome if there was a coherent debate. I hope that when Opposition Members see the carbon budgets they do what they say they regularly do regarding financial budgets of the State, namely, put forward alternatives and show us how we get to where we need to be within the timeframe concerned. I see no difference across the debate, except for a small minority of Opposition Members, when I sit on committees. The vast majority of the Members of these Houses recognise the crisis we are facing.

Some do not want a carbon tax. Quite frankly, I would prefer not to have a carbon tax; I would prefer to have no tax. It is a small part of the mix at the moment, but is highlighted as being much greater. It is a bit like corporation tax. The model set out for carbon tax gives certainty to the market. We are going through a significant shock to the energy system. That will come to an end at some point, and we will get back on a regular trajectory, but there needs to be certainty for all of the people who have made investments that in the future the price of oil, gas and fossil fuels will increase based on the damage they cause to the environment, whatever floor eventually comes back when we reach the end of the Ukrainian crisis.

I appeal to all sides to face this debate with honesty. If there is a dispute or difference of opinion, we should be truthful to everybody and come forward with a worked alternative that shows the capacity to reach the targets scientists have identified. All we should be debating is how we should get there. We do not have to get into the hows, wheres or whats, but only how we get there.