Climate Action: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2021-09-30
============================================================

Richard Bruton (FG), Dublin Bay North

I was here when the House declared, unanimously, that we have a climate emergency. None of the Rural Independent Group and none of the Regional Independent Group demurred. We are not behaving in this House like there is a climate emergency, and that is the reality. Ramping up higher and higher targets is not a response. It is particularly not a response to keep saying that "someone else must take the initiative before you ask me to do anything", which is what I hear continuously here. I regard it as climate cynicism. It is about "the data centres must do something or LNG must do something". There is always someone else who must do something before people will face their own responsibilities.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-09-30