National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) and Provision of Central Treasury Services Bill 2020: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-17 ============================================================ John McGahon (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel No, it is all right. I will be like Cicero. I will be brief, as the Cathaoirleach has said. The point of this climate action fund and reducing the NORA levy is to create far more projects that are sustainable, such as the seven already outlined. People from communities would be able to come to the Government or the Department and say they have an idea and run with it. It is such a wonderful way to engage local communities and it is definitely one of the big vehicles we can use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next ten years. It is important to stress that it would be very difficult for those projects to find funding otherwise. This is forward-thinking legislation. As Senator Fitzpatrick said, it is quite technical but it is such a pleasure to see it in the Seanad's first proper week of sitting because that shows the urgency behind this Bill and how committed the Minister is to it. I commend the Minister on bringing the Bill to this House so quickly. It is a much-needed measure and I find it very hard to see how anyone could disagree with it. The sooner we get it through this House, the better. --- 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/seanad/2020-07-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:26+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-07-17