The emissions gap report from the United Nations paints a stark picture when it comes to our climate. UN Secretary General, António Guterres, says: "Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3°C temperature rise" and that "the emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon". The Climate Change Advisory Council here has also repeatedly rung alarm bells and said that the pace at which the Government is implementing agreed climate policy "is not acceptable, given the existential threat and impact" climate c…

The climate action plans do not meet the targets.

Will the Minister provide an update on the national adaptation plan and indicate when it will be published? Adaptation is coming to the fore at the moment as we see the damage being caused by storms, but it is much broader in its scope than the need to address that issue.

The current framework was published in 2018, since when our understanding of the impacts of climate change has changed. The speed at which those impacts are affecting us has changed, as has Government policy. The sectoral adaptation plans produced under the NAF are not necessarily reflective, I hope, of current Government policy. For example, the flood management sectoral plan includes a list of the prioritisation of impacts and the response to climate change. The assessment of potential green infrastructure, which…

My fear is that there is a long process. We are talking about another consultation and a review, which will feed into sectoral plans, and I do not know when that will happen. By the time we get around to embedding nature-based solution thinking into our policies, it will be too late. We will have already installed a new generation of infrastructure that might not do what we need it to do. I agree with the Minister on local authorities, but the Government is the primary source of governance in the country. If local …

Can I have an update on the energy security review and how it will inform Government policy? I understand that a similar question may have been dealt with earlier, but we will delve into the matter a little more.

I will hone in on one element, namely, the State-led liquified natural gas, LNG, storage capacity. How will the Minister ensure that the relevant entity and its infrastructure will be fully controlled by the State? My understanding is that it is expected that it could be along the lines of a public private partnership, PPP. We have seen with PPPs across the country that while the intention might have been to have State control, in many instances this has not been the case. When the Minister asks Gas Networks Irelan…

If GNI is being tasked with the investigation and examination of this, and I assume the operation of it as well, does the Minister have confidence that it gets the whole area of climate? GNI was giving connections for islanded data centres, which is completely in non-compliance with our climate obligations. The Minister wrote to GNI last year and asked it to stop that. The fact is that he had to ask GNI to stop it, and it is a year down the road and it still not 100% the case. GNI is still connecting thousands upon…

Some 190 healthcare workers, 102 aid workers, 42 journalists, 1,200 Israelis, 240 Israeli hostages and more than 11,000 Palestinians and 4,650 Palestinian children have been killed in a mere 40 days. It is time to shout “Stop”. This has to stop now. There is a responsibility on each of us to do whatever is within our power to make sure that this stops. Whether that responsibility is on people who are outside these walls or, indeed, on us on the Opposition benches and those on the Government benches, there is a resp…

This is a response to Deputy Cairns.

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate today. We are three and a half years into this Dáil term and it should have happened a long time ago. We should have had these statements and the commitment from the Minister at the start of the term. I wonder whether the Minister, his party colleagues and his advisers sometimes sit and scratch their hands and wonder, despite bringing in a landmark Act, which the climate Act was, why we are still seeing emissions go up. Despite the efforts the Minister made at the start…

Every night and day, we see awful images of atrocities that are occurring and have occurred in the past month in Gaza. This started on 7 October and it is continuing daily. Unfortunately, children are suffering. We see images of children shaking and calling for their mothers, of limp bodies. What is happening in Gaza is awful. I welcome the strong words of the Taoiseach and the Government on the matter but we need to follow up strong words with strong actions. As my colleague said earlier, the next meeting of the E…

Approximately 4,500 children are waiting for their first appointment with child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, including hundreds in my constituency of Wicklow. Thousands of children are struggling every day with anxiety and with going to school. They are self-harming, have suicidal ideation and are struggling with eating disorders. Thousands of parents have to sit and watch their children go through this. We heard this morning from Families for Reform of CAMHS and it is clear that the CAMHS system i…

Today is international day against climate change, an initiative set up by the UN to create awareness of the threat of global warming. It is an issue that people in Midleton and places like Waterford need no reminder of; they are all too aware of the threat of global warming. Climate change is here. We do not have much discussion in the Chamber about adaptation and how we will actually adapt to the climate change we are already experiencing. We need statements in the Dáil on the national adaptation plan and what co…

The Ombudsman for Children today laid before the Dáil a special report on the safety and welfare of children in direct provision. This is the first time in their 20-year history that they have taken this action, which really illustrates the seriousness of these issues and of their concerns. They want this report to spur Government on to meet the commitments made in 2021. One of those commitments was in respect of a robust quality assurance mechanism for oversight in these centres. HIQA unfortunately only has oversi…

The ombudsman's report is in relation to the 24 commitments.

I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, line 19, after “Regulation;” to insert the following: “to provide for the laying before Dáil Éireann of a report on the application of the cap on market revenues within six months of the passing of this Act;”. It is very difficult to take up this debate after the debate we just had and the discussion in acknowledgement of the atrocities happening in Gaza at the moment. I have a number of amendments. The key principles behind them are transparency and fairness concerning the Bill i…

I move amendment No. 2: In page 8, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following: “(6) Without prejudice to any provision of this Act, “hedging arrangement” in accordance with section 14 , shall not be limited to the period beginning on 1 December 2022 and ending on 30 June 2023, but shall be extended until such time as the Minster deems fit.”. Amendment No. 2 - I have said it previously to the Minister of State - relates to hedging arrangements and the reporting of those arrangements to the Commission for Regul…

The amendment states: In page 8, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following: "(6) Without prejudice to any provision of this Act, "hedging arrangement" in accordance with section 14 , shall not be limited to the period beginning on 1 December 2022 and ending on 30 June 2023, but shall be extended until such time as the Minster deems fit.". It relates to the relevant period.

While the amendment extends the relevant period, this relates to hedging arrangements. The question is whether the extension of the relevant period as regards hedging arrangements was part of the discussions on the legal considerations. The Minister of State has talked about the cap and regulatory uncertainty but, in fact, it would actually make things a lot more certain for companies to know they had to provide this information to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, going forward.