Deputy Ó Broin might let me make my point.

I listened to him, with respect-----

-----so he needs to listen to me.

For those who want to purchase their own house, we will provide shared equity schemes to help them do that, and where they cannot afford to do that, we will have a mechanism whereby the local authority or approved housing body, AHB, purchases the property. That is new.

That is radical and different.

I will conclude with that. Let us not just use slogans. Let us not play politics with housing. Let us work on real solutions.

I have a slight difficulty in that I have a Cabinet sub-committee meeting to attend at 8.30 p.m. I cannot get out of that but the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, may cover for me for the closing contribution.

Apologies for that in advance. These statements are being taken later than originally planned. I am pleased to have this opportunity to come before the Seanad and address the matters raised as regards Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI. I am keen to assist the Senators in further understanding recent events. As Members will be aware, there have been a number of resignations from the board of IFI, including two chairpersons, in the period since April 2022. The required quorum for a meeting pursuant to section 20(5) of th…

I thank the Acting Chairperson and I apologise. Dáil votes that were due to occur and changes to the Seanad schedule resulted in a clash. I am very conscious that the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth-----

-----will be in a very difficult position because he has not been directly involved. He will certainly report back to me on what other Senators raise. Before I leave and hand over to the Minister of State, I will briefly respond to some of the points raised. On Senator Kyne's comments, I thought our discussion on this in the Oireachtas committee was very useful and I am happy to follow on from that. However, I find myself in a position where I cannot really comment on the suggested reasons for any one board member …

I thank the Deputy for proposing this amendment. The Climate Action Act and Low Carbon Development Act and the provisions therein are extremely important to provide for public bodies to act in a manner consistent with the latest climate action plan. This particular legislative provision was inserted on the advice of the Attorney General and reflects the language already approved by the Oireachtas under section 10 of the Development (Emergency Electricity Generation) Act 2022. This legislation is intended to require…

This Bill is very similar to the earlier Act which provided for An Bord Pleanála in the context of being able to apply Article 2(4) of the environmental impact assessment directive with regard to consideration by An Bord Pleanála. This is a similar provision. We are replicating the provision in this Act in section 3 to give the same requirements. It is being done on the advice of the Attorney General. This is exceptional wording because these are exceptional circumstances and this is exceptional legislation. It is …

The Deputy's amendment states it should be "consistent with" rather than "having regard to".

This similarly says "in line with the provisions as set out".

The wording "in a manner consistent with" is in the text of the amendments to the legislation drafted before us, but it does delete the other wording. I believe what we are doing here is consistent with the Act. I also believe it is consistent with the 2023 plan to which the Deputy referred. It specifically states that we will need such a generation capacity as the ones we are legislating for here.

I agree. The point I was making is that it is provided for in the legislation. It is caveated, one would argue, by the further text, which Deputy Whitmore's amendment would delete. It must recognise that in this particular instance it must take account of the exceptional circumstances of this legislation. The text was included in the 2022 Act on the advice of the Attorney General and repeated here. It was on the basis of that advice that I decided, unfortunately, that I could not accept the amendment. The text was …

The holder of an industrial emissions licence is required to submit an annual environmental report, AER, each year to the agency. The AER is designed to facilitate the provision to the public of a concise summary of environmental performance and ongoing developments on a licensed site over the previous year. AERs, depending on the nature of the site, typically include details of environmental objectives and targets achieved to date and go to maintain compliance and-or improve the environmental performance of the fa…

The legislation relates to the licensing process under the EPA Act. It would not be appropriate to insert provisions dealing with matters outside the scope of the functions of the agency, such as reporting on electricity and security of supply. There is, as I said on the previous amendment, not just the collection of data but the public reporting of that. That is publicly available in the performance of the plant meeting its licence requirements. I would be happy, if the Deputy wants to bring to the Dáil or committ…

I would be happy to do that at any stage. There are probably two different time periods. This equipment will not be in until the end of the year, whereas I presume the debate on the energy security issue would happen before that. I am happy to commit to further debate along those lines at an appropriate time.

I am afraid I cannot accept it, for the primary reason that we already have a sunset clause. The Eirgrid, Electricity and Turf (Amendment) Act 2022, which was published last year, has such a clause, saying the project will cease operation in 2027, with an option of a further year, if required, but only if a resolution is passed by both Houses. The purpose of that legislation was to provide this capacity and will remain available until the necessary replacement capacity has been secured. It is absolutely cast iron, …