Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I commend Senator Higgins, the Civil Engagement Group and Sárán Fogarty in Senator Higgins's office on bringing forward this Bill. It is really important the State leads by example when it comes to tackling climate change.We need that collective action and a strong, co-ordinated response. Through Government-led climate action we can mobilise the resources but also set out to communities and the general public that we are leading by example, leading from the front. One obvious action we could take is what this Bill intends to do, namely, to strengthen the mandate of Coillte and Bord na Móna in order that they can deliver for people and the planet. As Senator Higgins said, it is not about businesses not still being profitable, rather it is about sustainable business. I am happy to support the legislation.

I am especially delighted to see that biodiversity receives significant pride of place in the mandates. One area I wish to focus on is around the mid-Shannon wilderness park. I raised this at the climate action committee because it is so important that Bord na Móna delivers on the commitment it gave to the community in mid-Shannon. It agreed 20 years ago that when the turf-cutting stopped it would work with the community to deliver what the community wanted. The community wants that wilderness park. It got the support of the local government, local councillors and Deputies, yet Bord na Móna has reneged on that promise to the community. Instead it is proposing to put forward a windfarm on the site which will require the continuation of the pumping of that land. This means it is using electricity to create electricity, when all it has to do is turn off the pumps and create that wilderness park that the people of the area want so much.

A matter flagged to me by the Irish Wildlife Trust and other organisations that campaigned for this wilderness park for so long is that the mandate of Bord na Móna needs to change so that it has to put climate action and biodiversity front and centre as part its work programme. That is why I am so happy to see that biodiversity is front and centre in the legislation.

I would also like to spend what is left of my time talking about a bugbear of mine in the climate Act and section 15. I agree it is important to strengthen the mandates of Bord na Móna and Coillte. I have to ask why it has not been done already. We have been here before debating the role of State agencies in climate change. The climate Act was supposed to provide that economy-wide sea change in how we were tackling climate change. For the Green Party getting this binding climate action Act across the line was front and centre when going into government. Yet, what we have seen is that section 15 still excludes a number of bodies.

There are significant portions of the State that play a role in climate action. Coillte and Bord na Móna are just two of them. Other parts of the State also need to do more such as Dublin Bus, the ESB and the Dublin Airport Authority. The reason I doubt whether we will achieve anything under the climate Act is that the relevant State bodies under section 15 are only those bodies that are obligated under the Freedom of Information Act. They are the only bodies obligated to comply with section 15. That excludes all the commercial semi-State bodies. It is interesting that when drafting the climate legislation we actually asked the Department at the time for the list of the relevant bodies that were captured by section 15. We could not get a list from the Department. We followed it up with parliamentary questions about whether commercial semi-States, including Coillte and Bord na Móna, were bound by the climate act. The response from the Minister at the time was that he was seeking legal guidance on this matter. Finally, the Minister conceded in another parliamentary question that Ervia, the ESB, Bus Átha Cliath-Dublin Bus and Coillte Teoranta and other State bodies were not public bodies, and therefore were not relevant bodies under the climate Act.

When this was flagged to the Minister, why are we here today relying on members of the Opposition to bring forward legislation to try to change the mandates when this has been flagged repeatedly with the Minister? Not only that, the only time we have seen the climate action plan come into effect was in regard to the Galway ring road. An Bord Pleanála stated it was not aware of the latest climate action plan and that is why it did not defend the decision.

How many other State bodies are unaware of their obligations? We asked the Minister at committee whether he had the powers available to him under section 15(2) to give a direction to a relevant body requiring it to prepare and submit a report specifying the measures that the relevant body has adopted for the purposes of compliance. He was not aware of a single occasion when he did that.

In the climate Act, which we all sought and wanted to see cross the line because we wanted to see that complete, society-wide step change in how we approach our carbon emissions, we have excluded a large number of semi-State bodies from section 15. Those bodies that are obligated under the Act have not been informed by any Minister of their obligations under that Act. This does not bode well for our meeting our emissions reduction targets. I hope the Government will not oppose this legislation. We need to go much further in tightening up section 15 of the climate Act.