Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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63. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the steps being taken to effect the removal of subsidies on peat extraction in view of the State's emissions reduction targets and the recent vote of the Citizen's Assembly whereby 97% of assembly members voted in favour of the removal of Government subsidies on same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49052/17]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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65. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to incorporate the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly into the national mitigation plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49089/17]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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81. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the way in which his Department will progress the recommendations from the Citizens' Assembly on the subject of climate change; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48978/17]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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84. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the degree to which he expects existing provisions and future proposals to narrow the gap between what is required and what is already proposed in regard to the report from the Citizens' Assembly; if he is in a position to quantify the precise extent of the requirements that need to be met over the specified period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49079/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 63, 65, 81 and 84 together.  

I refer to the reply to Question No. 49 on today's Order Paper.

The  contributions by the members of the Citizens’ Assembly to this critical and urgent issue, which included consideration of a range of detailed presentations by technical experts in meetings over the course of two full weekends, have been welcomed by me and by the Government as a whole.

I understand that the Citizens' Assembly must now communicate its report and recommendations to the Houses of the Oireachtas for further consideration.  The topics considered by the Citizens’ Assembly as part of its module on climate change and the recommendations arsing from this module address a range of Government policies and activities. The Government will study the Assembly’s report and recommendations systematically and comprehensively when it receives them and will provide its response to each recommendation of the Assembly in the Houses of the Oireachtas in due course.

In general terms, I was pleased to note that many of the recommendations adopted by the members of the Assembly, as reported on during the second weekend of this module, are already being addressed in the National Mitigation Plan and in the implementation of the Energy White Paper, but I also acknowledge that other recommendations will need further consideration by Government.

Upon publishing the National Mitigation Plan in July of this year, the Government explicitly recognised that this first statutory Plan does not provide a complete roadmap to achieve either Ireland’s proposed 2030 target or the 2050 transition objective. It begins the process of development of medium to long term mitigation choices for the next and future decades, without underestimating the scale of what this entails. Analysis underpinning the Plan suggests the bringing forward of additional measures with a cumulative greenhouse gas mitigation capacity of 89 Mt CO2eq over the period 2021 to 2030. This will require significant societal transformation and, more immediately, very substantial investment by both the public and private sectors, as well as a broad range of non-financial policy tools including regulations, standards, education initiatives and targeted information campaigns. Work is ongoing on the analysis and costing of various suites of measures that could meet the 2030 target as cost-effectively as possible, and the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly will feed into this work.

While the Government, in its response to the Assembly’s report, will also address the specific recommendation to end all subsidies for peat extraction on a phased basis over the next 5 years, it should be noted that the PSO support for Bord na Móna’s Edenderry peat-fired power station expired in December 2015. The Edenderry power station is now in receipt of support for biomass co-firing via the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff 3 (REFIT 3) support scheme for up to 30% of the size of the plant. In addition, Bord na Móna has stated that it intends to cease harvesting peat for electricity generation by 2030. The company has committed to replace large-scale peat production with alternative energy sources. This will contribute significantly to the decarbonisation of electricity and is in keeping with the aims of the Energy White Paper. On top of this, the PSO support for the ESB’s West Offaly and Lough Ree peat power stations expire in 2019. These two peat plants may, like Edenderry, also move to co-firing with biomass, and are eligible for support under REFIT 3.

In this context, the National Mitigation Plan also recognises that fully realising the economic opportunities in the low carbon economy is key to ensuring a just transition, in particular for the groups and communities most affected by the scale of the transformation required such as those involved in peat extraction. Investment in the low carbon economy has the potential to create decent work and quality jobs to support local communities and workers in regions most strongly impacted by the ongoing transformation to a decarbonised society. In support of existing Government policy, as set out in the Regional Action Plans for Jobs, and the significant roles played by the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Local Enterprise Agencies in creating and sustaining employment and supporting enterprise development, a report will be prepared on the spatial or geographical economic and employment implications of the transition. The National Dialogue on Climate Action will also afford citizens and communities the opportunity to actively participate and engage in this important area of Government policy.