Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I request that we have a debate with the Minister for the environment on a report that Ireland will face fines up to €26 billion if we fail to meet our EU climate targets. That is an extraordinary amount. It is equivalent to all of the money that we might take in corporate tax receipts for one year that we hear of. It is equivalent to the entire health budget. Those are the kinds of fines we face if we fail to produce radical and significant policies in climate change. I would like a debate on that. Perhaps the Leader will request that urgently with the Minister for the environment.

I would also like to highlight something that perhaps relates to some points made earlier.

For a neutral country, the work of peace is not something that just appears in war-time. It is even more important at those times when we are trying to build peace. Today, we have heard worrying reports that Commission President von der Leyen is suggesting that we should arm Europe to such an extraordinary extent that we would suspend the fiscal rules. By the way, those rules were not suspended in order to deal with the very real and pressing climate crisis to allow countries to transition rapidly to reducing their emissions and prepare for the worst effects of climate change. The really worrying part is, as reported by the media, that the Social Cohesion Fund would be redirected to weapons. The Social Cohesion Fund is exactly the kind of thing that actually and holds peace, as seen in Northern Ireland and in a Europe with a history of millennia of fighting.

Who likes a lack of cohesion and of investment in social cohesion? The opposite of it is division. Not only is it a complete misdirection in terms of what will actually give us peace and security in Europe, but it is also an open invitation to those who would seek to sow division and create the kind of climate that we saw with the austerity and lack of investment in social cohesion of the past that set the agenda for the rise of far right. We have seen the effect of these kinds of issues in the United States and many European countries. I would like to know what Ireland is doing to bring our wisdom on peace building into the discussions that are happening because it seems to be sadly absent at the moment.