I will be brief because I want to get to my amendment, No. 4. I support Senator McDowell's amendment on funding from State sources and it is important that people know where their money is being spent. I am flagging that we might expand on this on Report Stage because I am concerned about a particular expert body. This goes back to when I was asking for clarification on section 4 and if someone is hired whether there is transparency around the members of expert bodies. There is an expert body that is constantly on …

I move amendment No. 4: In page 6, between lines 15 and 16, to insert the following: “ Amendment of section 16 of Principal Act 9. The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 16: “The code of conduct to protect the public interest from fossil fuel lobbying 16A. In this section— ‘fossil fuel lobbyist’ means a person carrying on lobbying activities, and such bodies representing them, for a fossil fuel undertaking or groups with fossil fuel undertakings as members; ‘fossil fuel…

I remind the Minister of State that there is the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and there are limits on the tobacco industry lobbying. Meetings with the tobacco industry are not allowed regarding the promotion of the product. That is exactly the reason I am making the point; we have accepted that there are certain industries that we are moving away from and that we need to have special rules around. It is the same as fossil fuel advertisement bans, and that is why the environment…

Hear, hear.

Well said.

Hear, hear.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I also welcome the motion and thank the Green Party Senators for bringing it to the House. It is a valid suggestion to waive the connection charges for local authorities and community groups that are seeking to provide a water connection to public water bottle refill stations. We all know, and many have spoken about, how plastic water bottles are a waste, especially when we have such good quality water available. I understand that the regulator is independent of the Government. Ho…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach. I wish to raise an important issue of road safety. As the Minister of State will probably be aware – or perhaps he is not – the Road Safety Authority, RSA, does not release data about collisions to researchers and it has not done so for years. We need better research on road safety to save lives and the key indicator of safety on a road is the number of collisions. However, the RSA is not releasing incident-level data. It is especially important to get data on the …

I appreciate that now we are getting an acceptance that the Road Safety Authority Act allows for the Minister to issue that direction to the RSA. However, I am not sensing any urgency about it. It is 12 months since the review took place. This is happening in every other European country; they are able to give those monthly accessible data. We need to see a little bit of urgency around making sure. We are in that critical moment of transforming our road network and trying to encourage people to get active and get o…

Some Senators raised the surplus in the public accounts this morning. It comes as cold comfort to many families that are in arrears on their gas bills. At the end of December 2022, 139,785 domestic gas customers were in arrears. I am sure many Senators have constituents who are horrified by the large gas bills that are landing on their doorsteps. It was the subject of a commencement matter this morning. Gas bills are in the thousands of euro. Pensioners are having to face finding the money to heat their homes. I kn…

Curim fáilte roimh an Aire. I was delighted to see the exciting development in the Irish wool industry of the launch of the Irish-grown wool council, which is set to bring together industry representatives to build on the potential of the sector. As colleagues have noted, this all-island council will seek to improve the quality of Irish-farmed wool and facilitate collaboration in product and market research. The council's formation is a critical step in implementing the wool feasibility study's key recommendations,…

The ongoing issue of Ireland’s neutrality seems to be constantly in the news. It is being pushed by various commentators, including the usual suspects in government who seem to always be flagging the issue that we need to somehow change our approach towards something of which the Irish people are very proud, namely, our neutral status. There has been a systematic attempt to constantly eat away at our neutrality. Most recently, we have seen that from both the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Mich…

Hear, hear.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach. We all know, and I have discussed previously with the Minister of State, that using raw materials unsustainably is the current model and that we need to overhaul our economic model from one that is based on "take, make, waste" to one that is circular. "Reduce, reuse, recycle" is probably the idea that is most commonly associated with the circular economy. The Minister of State will be aware we introduced, initially as an amendment to the Circular Economy and Miscel…

I thank the Minister of State for his response. It does not address the scavenging element. We know that certain perfectly legal organisations are doing this on a bespoke basis. I am looking for a more formalised universal approach to that so it is not subject to the geographical lottery of where someone lives, for example, near Ballymun or near the civic amenity centre where they are collecting the dials for electrical appliances. We could be more ambitious about how we roll that out. I welcome that regulations wi…

I second Senator Gavan's amendment to the Order Paper. I ask for an update from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, on the timing of a referendum on water ownership. Today is World Water Day and the trade union umbrella group, Keep Water Public, was outside Leinster House. I hope Members got out to meet them and to show their support for a referendum on keeping the ownership of water in public hands. There is a commitment to hold a referendum on this issue. In November t…

Hear, hear.

I second the motion.

Sinn Féin will not oppose this Bill but we will put on the record a deep frustration with the process. It is not good to rush through any legislation but especially legislation that dilutes environmental protection measures. It is shocking that we found ourselves in such a spectacular mess when it comes to electricity generation and demand. We had an interesting private meeting of the joint committee. Other Senators also attended. I will not name the person who said it but there are times when I would like people t…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 4, to delete lines 16 to 23 and substitute the following: “82D. The Agency, in considering designated applications, shall do so in a manner that is consistent with the plans, strategy, framework and objectives referred to in section 15(1) of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015.”.”. We want assurances from the Minister of State. From our reading of the Bill, it is trying to override section 15 of the 2015 Act, which relates to relevant bodies. There is already a gre…