Climate Action Plan
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

When I first got this job a year ago I got many regular briefings on disease threats, risks, plant diseases, animal diseases, weather risks and everything else. It is a bit overwhelming and then after a while one realises we have our mitigation plans and our approach, which I will go into in a minute. However, it is important we do not catastrophise. The NCCRA, published in 2025, identifies over 100 climate risks and prioritises 43 significant risks across sectors. While AMOC is noted as a system concern, a full collapse is considered a low-likelihood, high-impact event. More immediate risks to agriculture include increased weather variability, storm impacts and shifts in rainfall and temperature patterns. My sectoral adaption plan for 2025 strengthens resilience in agriculture, forestry and seafood. The key objective is to embed adaptation, enhance resilience and integrate adaptation and mitigation measures. Priority actions cover a wide range of areas, to respond to the direct question, such as advisory and technical capacity, sustainable land and water management, which involves improving soil health, water retention, hedgerows, flood resilience and other measures, which I can address in my next supplementary contribution.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29