Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

The Minister announced he is stepping down from public service after a lifetime in that role and giving voice to the environment, which is the issue of this generation and the world. We had the former President, Mary Robinson, in last week talking about the necessity for climate justice and climate action. When she was with us two years ago for Seanad 100 she said we had eight years to go. She is very consistent. We now have six years to go to reach the tipping point and yet it is not an everyday conversation and not enough is being done by all governments. I thank the Minister for his service to the State, especially on this topic.

The reason we asked the Minister to come in is because of the role of this committee. After 50 years of membership of the European Union, so many laws are being made by it, and they are being made through the less than exciting title of the transposition of EU directives by way of statutory instruments. It does not get less exciting than that. The reason we pushed for this committee to be established is that there was a lack of transparency. One of the answers we got back from the Minister and his Department is that the draft statutory instrument that we were going to scrutinise was not going to be made available. We wanted to put it up on the website. Now they are starting to refer to them as working documents, as opposed to draft legislation, and therefore the ability of the public, and also those who are affected by it, to scrutinise them is being removed. Our very specific ask is that the Minister, Deputy Ryan - and all Ministers - would allow the draft statutory instruments to be published by this committee as soon as we get them so that people can see them and then they will be sent on to the sectoral committees for them to scrutinise them.

I will give the Minister a very bad example. Not only did he outline all the problems that we are having at the moment, but we also have the draft statutory instrument that is supposed to be transposed into Irish law by 7 July. The Chair might remind me which one it is as I cannot remember.