Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Sadly, as I said, the current structures have not been adequate to ensure responsible investment. We have seen State investment in undertakings operating in illegally occupied territories. The choice then had to be made to divest from those investments. The initial choice to invest was made under the ESG structure we currently have. It was clearly inadequate.

If we are investing in a fund in order to generate moneys to tackle key issues, we must ensure that fund is not compounding the problem we hope to generate money to solve. Unfortunately, we have a record of that happening. We see it in respect of housing, in the situations where the State has been an investor in large commercial investment funds that have competed with local authorities to buy up estates. Local authorities, which are an arm of the State, in trying to purchase properties to increase public housing stock, must compete with commercial for-profit entities in which the State has invested. That is an example of the State looking at one side, which is the commercial return from investing in some real estate investment trust, REIT. That will generate money but, at the same time, we are creating cost for ourselves. We are subsidising, by increasing its flow of capital, a body that will then drive up the costs for local authorities when they try to purchase housing. The State is competing with itself. Just because one bit of the State gets a profit from one part of an activity, the general good and the general return for the public are undermined.

I am fearful of that issue in regard to climate. I am fearful of a situation whereby the things that make the most profit in the climate space may not be the things that deliver the best outcomes in terms of a drastic reduction in emissions. Mrs. Mary Robinson spoke about this in the Chamber earlier today. Just because the current projections are that Ireland will achieve only 29%, versus 51%, in emissions reductions, it is not an acceptable situation. I worry that there is an attitude of just accepting we will not meet our targets. We need to reach 51% emissions reductions. If we end up in a situation whereby the choices to deliver the emissions reduction are in some sense competing with what will give the best commercial profit return, there is a nuance there that must be examined.

The Minister said what we are doing under this legislation is based on previous funds and what is being done in other jurisdictions. However, these are not previous times. When it comes to climate, the balance is really tight. We do not get to do it again. We have this decade to do it right. The need to make every best possible decision we can make in respect of acting on climate has a particular urgency to it. Frankly, the old investment models and systems were not doing enough in this regard. That is why we have new tools, including the taxonomy, even though it is very flawed, at European level. There is a recognition that how we did things previously was not working.

I have a separate concern. I did not address it in an amendment because such an amendment would not be taken as it would have money implications. My concern is that not enough of the fund is going directly to climate purposes and so forth. This is a separate issue. Everything we do should be really checked for any potential negative impact. We should not create a situation wherein the State is choosing between what is profitable and what is necessary and good. We need a situation whereby they become the same thing. The bit that is profitable or commercial has to fit inside the absolutely non-negotiable envelope that is the amount of emissions space we have left.

There is a lack of robustness in the system we had previously. I have given the example of how it failed us on housing. We cannot afford to have it fail us on climate. If the Minister is not accepting this amendment because of considerations to do with the existing tools, I urge that there be a re-examination of those tools. The sense I got from the NTMA was that unless it is robustly and legally required to do something, it will not be centre stage in its mind. I do not believe its application of the ESG requirements has been sufficiently strong in the past. Especially when it comes to a climate fund, half-hearted box-ticking on the environment will not do. There must be a really robust analysis of each choice.