Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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7. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will ensure that second-level students have an input into the just transition process and in particular in an organisation (details supplied). [15430/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The 2021 Climate Action Plan sets out a framework for promoting a just transition in Ireland centred on the following four principles:

- An integrated, structured, and evidence-based approach to identify and plan our response to just climate transition requirements

- People are equipped with the right skills to be able to participate in and benefit from the future net zero economy

- The costs are shared so that the impact is equitable and existing inequalities are not exacerbated

- Social dialogue to ensure impacted citizens and communities are empowered and are core to the transition process

Social dialogue is core to developing a vision for how to secure a just transition across all impacted sectors of the economy. The National Dialogue on Climate Action will be a key mechanism for facilitating this social dialogue and will include processes of awareness-raising, communications, and activation, and ensure community engagement and participation, using a model co-designed with stakeholder participation and informed by broad public participation and social and behavioural research. The Climate Action Plan also anticipates that individual sectors will play a key role in facilitating inclusive social dialogue to design and implement their respective climate policies in a way which promotes a just transition. Young people are essential voices in these processes, particularly given the importance of the inter-generational impacts of climate change.

In respect of ongoing work in the Midlands region, a public consultation on a draft of Ireland’s Territorial Just Transition Plan for the EU Just Transition Fund took place between 20 December 2021 and 14 February 2022. Feedback was gathered through an online survey and three participative online public workshops. One of these workshops specifically sought the views of young people aged 16 to 24 living, working, or studying in the wider Midlands region. Representatives of the National Youth Council and the Irish Second-level Students' Union were invited and participated in this workshop. These views were captured and will be reflected in the consultation report, which summarises themes emerging in the responses received. This report will be published on gov.ie in the coming weeks and public consultation outputs will now be used to further develop and finalise the draft Territorial Just Transition Plan, before it is sent to Government for agreement.On approval by Government, the plan, together with the associated EU Just Transition Fund programme, will be submitted to the European Commission for approval during the course of 2022.