Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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70. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment further to Parliamentary Question No. 75 of 14 May 2024, the status of the development by his Department of a monitoring and reporting system for the local authority climate action plans; the details of any engagement he or his Department has had to date with Galway City Council or Galway County Council with regard to their local authority climate action plans; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27151/24]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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My question relates to the climate action plans, the preparation of which is mandatory for all the 31 local authorities. My question specifically relates to Galway city and county and, more particularly, the Minister’s Department and what progress has been made on a monitoring and reporting system because that is essential.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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In March 2023, I published statutory guidelines to assist local authorities in preparing their local authority climate action plans. Those guidelines include a requirement for ongoing monitoring and progress reporting. Each local authority must provide reporting arrangements which demonstrate accountability for the delivery of actions at various levels, including: reporting within the local authority to elected members, strategic policy committees or other forums; reporting at a sectoral level to aggregate towards performance of the local government sector on climate action; and reporting at national level, as part of the delivery of the national climate objective, to existing reporting structures for the national climate action plan, and additional reporting on progress of the local authority climate action plans.

My Department introduced action LG/24/3 to the 2024 climate action plan to develop a monitoring and reporting system for the local authority climate action plans in order to fulfil our national reporting obligations. This national monitoring and reporting system is currently being developed by my Department. My Department has developed a proposal on local authority climate key performance indicators, KPIs, to support the local authority climate action plans. We shared this in mid-May with the County and City Management Association, CCMA, climate action KPI working group. It will engage further with the CCMA on this to develop an agreed approach.

Further to my response to Parliamentary Question No. 75 of 14 May 2024, I understand that my Department has not had any engagement with Galway City or Galway County Council in relation to their local authority climate action plans to date. However, on several occasions, including in recent months, as Minister, I have met the county manager and the council’s director of services and shared informally an assessment of its plan and where we go next.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I welcome the Minister’s reply and what he set out, but I think he will agree that a monitoring and reporting system is absolutely essential. Galway City Council is in trouble when it comes to housing. It has many priorities on its hands, including traffic congestion. It seems that climate action is not getting the attention it deserves. I can understand that to a certain extent. However, we declared a climate emergency in 2019, which the Minister knows better than me. In 2021, he sought applications for a decarbonising zone. The city council did its job there and it sent that in but here we are three years later and nothing has happened. I know the decarbonising zone will be part of the climate action plan, but the Minister can imagine my frustration, and I am sure he shares it, at how long it is taking after we declared a climate emergency. We need transformative change. That will not happen with management under pressure on so many other issues. It needs to be led by the Department and the most essential part of that is a monitoring and reporting system.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I was very pleased that every one of the 31 local authorities and their councillors approved their local climate action plans in the timeframe we requested, namely by March. We have to be up front and honest that the level of engagement varies between counties but there was a very real effort to make sure that happened.

I agree with the Deputy. We need to go forward and really focus on the implementation phase in the decarbonising zones but also in monitoring and measuring. We will make sure that we do deliver those monitoring and reporting standards so that local authorities can be measured and tested on performance and delivery.

We must be careful, however. It cannot all be top down from the centre. It also has be bottom up and owned at local level. I had a series of meetings in Galway, both city and county. Another element in the mix is other actors. I had a very good meeting with Galway Chamber of Commerce which was absolutely sincere and committed about the business sector playing its part. That is not only the local authorities but also, returning to what we were saying earlier, our sustainable energy groups and so on. Yesterday, I met groups around the country which are involved with the sustainable development goals. It has to be broad. It cannot just be the local authority or business. It must be a variety of organisations, such as tidy towns organisations, local Macra and so on, which also have a role. Encouraging and facilitating them within the climate plans will be key.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Galway is a particularly good example of a bottom-up approach. I was there back during the period 2000 to 2003 when there was a bottom-up campaign against incineration - it was not in a NIMBY fashion but one of zero waste – and we were laughed at. We developed a plan for the county and what happened? The Government removed the power to make plans. The Minister is aware of all that. We collected 24,000 signatures for a feasibility study in respect of light rail. That still has not happened. The people are way ahead of us on sustainability and climate action and yet we still have foolish voices calling for an outer bypass that is going nowhere. It is going into a cul-de-sac, and in the meantime nothing is happening. Let us get back here. We need leadership from a Department for a city that is going under with a housing crisis and traffic congestion. We need leadership. The basic thing to monitor and report is missing and that delay is on the Minister’s side. Some 17 of the 20 warmest years in Ireland’s history have occurred since 1990. Ireland’s first climate change report stated that the country is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. There is insufficient action. I am over my time so I will stop, much as I would like to go on.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It needs both. We in central government must be centrally involved. But I might give a couple of examples where it also requires local authority leadership. Take the whole transport area, to return to a question from Deputy Gannon. I was making the case that to meet our climate targets we will have to reduce the volume of traffic and that requires demand-management measures which can only be taken at a local level.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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There has to be leadership.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We have the Department of Transport, an arm of central government, saying that it will close one road and open another. It needs local leadership. A second example of where we have a real issue is that a number of county councils in response to public concerns have basically frozen out the potential development of renewable power in their various development plans. Our ability to meet our renewables targets, which will cover half of the emissions reductions we have to see this decade, has been stymied in many instances by the development plans which basically stop it. Again, we are probably going to have to work through the national planning framework towards a more regional approach. It is fairer that it is not just some counties doing the heavy lifting and others not and also counties not benefiting from it. A third example - and the Deputy's case is a good one - is in the waste area. I agree with the Deputy. We have taken too much power from the local authorities. We need to restore action and decision-making at local level and create this new circular economy opportunity. However, that too can only come from a bottom-up approach. We will provide the legislative and other structures and funding and financing from central government but it requires leadership at a local level as well.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Anois, bogaimid ar aghaidh. An chéad cheist eile ná Uimh. 72 in ainm an Teachta David Stanton.