Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I firmly believe that with collective action in this country our society and this State can address this issue. I believe that because of my own experience in government during a very difficult period. However, in 2011 we were on target to meet our 2020 targets. We were on 11% and were heading in the right direction. While much of that was due to the recession, and in particular the loss of transport, EPA analysis at the time showed that half of it was due to political commitment. The Department of Justice and Equality had a collective agreement in this area. I was working in the Minister's job at the time, and had a sense that the regulators, the agencies, the business community and the public were all behind the shift and we were going to be able to do it. We were the first country in the world to introduce a charging network for electric vehicles. We had to practically shoot through the Department of Finance in what was the toughest budget, in 2009, but we got it through. During the toughest time we managed to put money aside for the greenway in Mayo, which is an incredible example of what can be done when sustainable travel is promoted. We got everyone behind a retrofitting scheme for homes, which is the best investment we can make. It took off and the public loved it as it led to better and healthier homes. We set a 40% target for electricity, which everyone at the time said was impossible and could not be done. We are going to be late achieving the target but we will get there. We had leadership. We set higher building standards, which helped to set up Irish companies which export insulation materials across the world because we are good at it. We can be good when we approach an issue collectively.

I apologise for being political here, but what went wrong after that was not just that a recession hit us. We were able to achieve some of the things I outlined in the teeth of a recession. The problem was that Fine Gael took its eye off the climate agenda; it had no interest in it. The public service also did a disservice to the public by not holding the line in terms of thinking long term and making sure we stuck to what we knew we had to do. The national mitigation plan is recognised as an unmitigated disaster. Climate Action Network Europe assessed how the different countries are engaging in the recent European climate process and rates Ireland just above Poland, which is an incredible disgrace for our country. We learned that there was no consideration of climate in our national development plan which runs until 2040. John FitzGerald was right when he said that we are completely off course and heading in the wrong direction. I have to say that unfortunately the first three or four presentations we heard today from our public service were deeply disappointing, culminating in the jaw-dropping moment when the head of the Science Foundation Ireland reassured the committee that we should not worry about climate change because technological solutions, including carbon capture technologies, will become available. It beggared belief.

We are at a point of change. Various Deputies have mentioned that we should act with a common purpose and agree that now is the time for change. I attended the Stop Climate Chaos meeting earlier at Buswell's Hotel. People were genuinely worried. They can see it happening and can read all the statistics, which show that we are 95% off target. There is a sense that the Oireachtas is not doing anything, and people are really anxious about that. I told them that we are changing, and that now is the time for change. Things are about to turn in a really dramatic way, and I hope that this committee can help achieve that goal. It means changing everything.

The Minister said that there are six different categories. Does he believe we should structure our approach in that way? Is that how he plans to approach the European Commission in terms of carrying out a report under those six headings? I would add a seventh; we have to look at the whole concept of systems change and how we use our land. We should start with a national land use plan that really thinks big and brave about the type of farming done in Ireland and where it is done, about wilderness, about how we bring back biodiversity, which is connected to this climate issue, where we put forestry and what type of forestry we should have, and considers what we should do with our sea area, which is massive and which could be turned into a marine conservation area as part of our contribution to the global fight against the loss of biodiversity and climate change. I believe we are at the point of change, but the annual transition statement, presented yesterday to the Seanad by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, was a further disgrace. We all know the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has been completely absent from any discussions on climate change. It is an open secret. There was no recognition yesterday that the fundamental system change we have to make is to ensure that there is less demand for transport and to reverse the trend we have seen of ever-lengthening commutes. There was a 30% increase in the number of people commuting for over an hour between 2011 and 2016. That has to stop. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport seems to have no knowledge of that. The Minister said correctly that 90% of the cars we pass every morning have a single occupant. We have to think about systems change and get away from this car-based, individual, atomised system and move towards one where car sharing and cycling is the absolute norm and that public transport is given the first priority. Transport Infrastructure Ireland is solving our gridlock and climate transport problems by widening all the approach roads to Dublin at the moment. If we are at a moment of change there has to be brutal recognition that TII is fundamentally confused, misguided and wrong, and it needs to change. The national development plan does not achieve our objectives and must change.

The Minister has said he will submit this plan to the European Commission in February. We were always working on the assumption that this-----