Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The delegation order is a little strange. It seems like a retrospective way of amending something that would not normally be done. If the Minister has already been effectively consulted, unless there is a specific remit for a Minister of State, it is hard to see how it will work. I understand the reasoning. I have tried to bring in requirements, for example, for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to consult the Minister of State with responsibility for heritage. Such consultation would usually apply where there is a dedicated Minister of State and there would be a reason for doing so. I can see what the fix is but it seems to me that a cleaner fix would be to accept the amendment. However, if it takes going around the houses to avoid doing that, so be it.

With absolute respect to the Minister of State, my concerns are not really addressed by his response. He described the transfer of powers and how powers move around. The fundamental point regarding biofuels, for instance, which is crucial and will be a huge issue in terms of land use and environmental justice over the next period, was not really addressed. Regarding the buyout clauses, we can look to the policies, which is fine, but legislation is what we deal with here. I am not sure why the buyout clauses are there. I may seek to remove them altogether by way of amendment on Report Stage. I am signalling that intention now because the case needs to be made for them and that case cannot be made solely as a transport need. It needs to be made on an environmental basis as well.

Will the Minister of State address the specific issue of why a power to prosecute is being removed? Why not have both Ministers retain the power to prosecute? There are transport concerns that may arise in regard to renewable fuels, biofuels or tampered fuels and their impact on transport, but there are also significant environmental reasons that there may be a desire to prosecute certain actions, such as false labelling and failure to meet standards in terms of the percentage in respect of renewable fuels. There are a lot of environmental reasons for action as well as many transport reasons.

Reference was made to complexity. What we are doing is complex and I certainly do not think avoiding complexity is good. If we start from that position, we will strip everything down to the basics. Optimal is not necessarily about taking a minimal approach and looking to the minimal level. Optimal is about ensuring good decisions are made as early as possible and with the right input at the beginning. It is like the efficiency versus effectiveness argument back in the day. Efficiency is good if it gets us there fast, but effectiveness is the actual goal for all of us in our political policies. When it comes to ensuring effective regulation of the area of renewable fuels and transport, it is important to have a strong and stringent enforcement component. Having the double failsafe of the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and the Minister for Transport acting on something as crucial as prosecution makes sense because it is more effective, which is ultimately what we want.

I regret that the Minister of State is not able to accept these amendments. The prosecution issue needs to be examined. There may be good cases for opt-outs and the buying out of obligations but they should be rare. I am not confident there is no risk in the transfer of these powers. I would appreciate an opportunity for the Department to give information on biofuels and what the safeguards and policies are in that regard. I thank the Minister of State for outlining the 2021 policies of the Minster for Transport. Of course, a new Minister may introduce new policies. It would be good to see what the policies and safeguards are in respect of biofuels before we go to Report Stage.