Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up where the previous speaker ended on the warnings we have had from Dr. Tara Shine and others. These extreme weather events are happening more often right across the world. I have spoken about the ten warmest years on record, but right across the world we are seeing an increase in the frequency and intensity of storms, drought, the wildfires that come with drought, of mud slides and the huge shifts in climate and the environment. These are the emergency events but there are also many other slightly slower moving shifts - devastating for farmers worldwide - and more extreme temperatures at higher levels right across the world. I remember not long ago in the previous Oireachtas we were talking about "Keep 1.5° Alive" in terms of the climate debate, because 1.5°C was going to be so devastating. Now we are beginning to hit 1.5°C this year. We are in an era where it is not just about readiness but an urgency in what we do to prevent climate change.

At this point it is not about preventing it but preventing the extremes of climate change. It is important and people have given valuable input into emergency response and how to improve and strengthen it. I appreciate the Minister came in with detail of the mechanisms that are in place, but it is also important to be able to hear from people when they talk about what worked and what did not work and adapting and shifting that.I will speak about two or three of the areas where we need not just better emergency response but better resilience, preparedness and shifts in policy so we avoid the kind of emergency situations and some of the catastrophes we have seen in recent times.

I am not going to go into climate policy in detail because I would be here for the afternoon, but I will focus on a few of the key areas. Forestry has been spoken about. Others have talked of the importance of not having this wood be wasted and that all the fallen trees should be harvested and used because every tree that falls contains carbon that should not be wasted at a time when we cannot afford to waste any part of our planetary limit with respect to carbon production. However, we also need a shift in forestry policy. It is not simply about the money. For lots of people it is about the money and it is important that is recognised and supported, but it is also around changing the policies on forestry. A huge number of hectares of forestry were hit and just over 11,600 ha of Coillte's plantations were hit badly by the storm. This far exceeded the damage caused by Storm Darwin and others. It exceeded all previous records. We must talk very honestly about Sitka spruce, monoculture and how literal tinkering at the edges – whereby we get a few broadleaves planted around the edge of a big Sitka spruce plantation - will not do it and will not be enough.

The Minister of State will be aware of my mandate for nature Bill, which has progressed partly through these Houses and which I will be bringing forward again in this term. It was a Bill to change the mandate of Coillte from a very short-term one, namely, the business of forestry on a commercial basis. We are aware that has been interpreted in shareholder letters from Government as cash-generating and concerned with how Government can get a little bit of cash quickly from Coillte. It does not even make very much. It is just about whether Coillte can make cash and can it make it quickly. My Bill would ensure Coillte, which is responsible for 7% of the land in this State, not all of which is suitable for forestry, would be handled in a responsible way. The Bill would replace that very narrow commercial business along with a little sideline in some climate projects with a mandate that it be socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. We can still have an economic business in terms of forestry, but each economic choice would be checked against what its impact would be environmentally, whether it is sustainable, whether the trees are going to stay standing and what the social impact is going to be if we are planting poorly advised plantations of monoculture that cannot withstand extreme events as extreme events increase in communities across Ireland.

There are some very real reasons behind this. Sitka spruce plantations are often particularly vulnerable as they are often planted in shallow, peaty soil, the trees have root plates that are broad and shallow and they grow tall and slender. They are very weak and vulnerable to high winds. They are not suitable for planting at the scale we have done. People have talked about continuous cover forestry as one of the ways we can address this, and I agree. We must also recognise that what our forests are going to be doing for us is actual carbon storage, which does not mean 20 years in a tree before that is cut down. It is a fact that forestry is a net emitter in Ireland right now. Instead, it is about planting in ways that are resilient. A previous catastrophe we had befell Killarney. We saw huge wildfires there a few years ago and native trees proved more resilient in areas where there were original stands of oak and other species. Scientifically, we know a mix of trees species and indigenous trees are more resilient to extreme weather events, be that fire or the storm we had.

That is the kind of conversation we need to have about forestry. I am grateful we have not had too much in this Chamber of the frankly unhelpful discussion we saw in the other House about cutting every tree near a road. This is in a country where we have cut the trees in the middle. We have one of the lowest levels of forestry cover in Europe and in many cases we only have the trees by the roadways, along with our hedgerows. We have to use our hedgerows to try to maintain our biodiversity targets because we have cut everything else. It is about the right tree in the right place. Sitka spruce is not the right tree and they are not in the right place. It is about moving beyond just the roadside when it comes to where we are allowed plant trees in a meaningful way. When we chop down trees indiscriminately, such as every tree greater than 6 or 8 ft tall, we increase the risk of flooding because trees are vital in the context of storms as they absorb moisture and prevent flooding. Poor and indiscriminate cutting is a recipe for increased flooding and for higher windspeeds and greater damage. The right trees, and the trees we have if properly protected and increased, are one of the things that are going to make us more resilient in the storms ahead.

I have spoken excessively on forestry when I had many other things I wanted to talk about, but I will focus briefly on some of the other areas we need to look at. We must look at strengthening our renewable energy. We had much complaining about renewable energy in the storm’s aftermath and suggestions we need more and more solid fuels. The situation showed, however, that we have been underinvesting in the storage component of renewable energy and the associated policies. I will highlight four aspects. There are solar panels that are unable to access their own energy because their systems are not configured to work off grid. If people have solar panels, they should be able to access that energy and it should be able to work as a reserve. The home battery grants were removed. We can talk about backup generators, but grants for people to have batteries at home were removed. People talked about peat fires and everything else, but a dialysis or CPAP machine cannot be run off those whereas it can be run off a home battery. The grants were removed in February 2022 when the microgeneration support scheme began, as if now people could sell power back to the grid we did not need to store it. It was not just about having batteries as a product to sell, however, but about having batteries as a resilience tool. That should be reintroduced. We should look again at the vehicle to load functions of electric vehicles. It should be one of the requirements so it is available as a backup. We are putting a huge amount of money into subsidising electric vehicles and it is possible to use them as a backup system. We must see that kind of investment systemically in community hubs and spaces that have proper energy resources we can access so we have a system across the country where people who need power can access it and we have individual supports in that regard in the form of backup generators. We certainly cannot intensify our fossil fuel usage and pretend that is somehow going to get us out of a hole, because it will ruin us. In particular, LNG, which will not give any resilience as it will take five or ten years to happen, will have the effect of pouring petrol on a fire because it has a higher climate impact and it has it quicker in carbon emissions terms. That would an absolute disaster both globally and nationally. I look forward to the Minister of State’s response.