Dail Éireann · 2023-02-28
Part of Priority Questions
Party shown is the one held on 2023-02-28, frozen at parse time — not the speaker's party today.
60. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications further to Parliamentary Question No. 119 of 15 December 2022, the status of the promised statutory guidelines for the implementation of local authority climate action plans, which will include the guidelines for the implementation of the local authority decarbonisation zones; the timeline for the publication of the statutory guidelines; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9910/23]
The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 strengthens the role of local authorities in climate action. The Act sets out a statutory requirement for each local authority to prepare a local authority climate action plan within 12 months from when the Minister formally issues a request to the sector to begin the preparation of such plans.
They are the local authority climate action plan guidelines; a technical annex on developing and implementing the local authority climate action plan; a climate change risk assessment annex; a climate mitigation assessment annex; and an annex on decarbonising zones. There is a great imbalance in the amounts of money drawn down from sustainable funds for different climate action areas between different local authorities, which would make one wonder why some local authorities do not spend the money even when they are given it.
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I have a very specific question and it relates to the long-promised statutory guidelines we are waiting for that will form the basis on which climate action plans will be prepared and implemented. Where are the statutory guidelines? Have they been published or are they about to be published? If not, what is the delay and when will they be published?
I thank Deputy Connolly for her very specific question for which I have a very specific answer. I spoke to the civil servant who issued the guidelines last Friday. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 strengthens the role of local authorities in climate action. The Act sets out a statutory requirement for each local authority to prepare a local authority climate action plan within 12 months from when the Minister formally issues a request to the sector to begin the preparation of such plans. These plans were circulated to local authorities on Friday and there will be a formal launch next month. The local climate action plans have to be consistent with the most recent approved national climate plan and will include both mitigation and adaptation measures. The Act requires that they must be updated every five years. Each plan includes a decarbonising zone which is selected by the local authority. A separate technical annex has been developed as part of the guidelines to assist local authorities with this. There are a number of sections which have all been distributed now. They are the local authority climate action plan guidelines; a technical annex on developing and implementing the local authority climate action plan; a climate change risk assessment annex; a climate mitigation assessment annex; and an annex on decarbonising zones.
They have been completed and sent out to all of the 31 local authorities. Is that what I am to understand? There has been no fanfare at this point and nobody knows about it except the local authority management. Is that correct? However, everybody will know about it in a month's time. I welcome that they have finally been published because without them we cannot have a local climate action plan or an implementation plan. The Minister of State took exception to Deputy Bríd Smith's comment earlier. I identify with her, but not in any personal way. I do not think she meant it personally. The lack of urgency about climate action is startling. The guidelines that have now been issued have taken forever. On the decarbonisation zones the Minister of State referred to so proudly back in February 2021, two years ago to be precise, 29 of 31 local authorities have published their decarbonisation zones and nothing has happened since. Will the Minister of State comment on that?
We can have all the strategies and plans in the world but they do not come to much if they are not implemented and if there is no political will. Those two ingredients are absolutely key to the difference between saying things and things actually happening. Do people want the things to happen and will they put in the work and the competence to make them happen? I have been on a local authority and I think the Deputy has probably spent time on a local authority too.
Too much time.
She will know that there are sometimes many discussions on local authorities which are not matched by action and that sometimes plans are brought forward which speak in very high terms and in noble ways about things but do not really translate into actions because the executive or the councillors themselves do not really want them to happen. For these plans to translate into actual climate action, we will need to see some bravery on the part of the councillors and the executive and we will need to see a mind shift from some people who are really stuck in the past. I am not referring to any particular local authority but I have seen it broadly across them and I am hoping for some change.
I am normally constructively critical, and quite severely so, of the management in the city council in Galway but on this occasion, it did everything right. It submitted the decarbonisation zone plan two years ago and the Department has done nothing since then. I and other colleagues, I think, followed it up and we were told that it was waiting for the statutory guidelines. It has taken until last Friday to publish the statutory guidelines, so let us apportion blame justly and fairly and where it is due. Let us praise the councils, the 29 of 31, that submitted their decarbonisation zones. Is the Minister of State in a position to clarify whether 31 local authorities have now done it? Can he tell me why it has taken the Department so long? There is another question after this one and I might get a chance to elaborate on the tardiness of each Government to date and the Supreme Court judgment that forced the hand of the Government but at this point let us be fair and just. The decarbonisation plan has been sitting in the Department for two years.
We absolutely should be fair to local authorities. I do not have information for Deputy Connolly on the timeline that led to the issuing of the guidelines from last Friday; what the statutory timeline was; and what it ought to have been but I am willing to talk to the Deputy about it afterwards, if she wants to find out more information. What I am referring to with regard to local authorities is the problem where there is much discussion and talk about sustainable transport, for example, but when I go out to the local authorities all they want to talk to me about are new roads. When we allocate money for retrofitting, sometimes the local authorities do not spend the money that has been allocated to them. There is a great imbalance in the amounts of money drawn down from sustainable funds for different climate action areas between different local authorities, which would make one wonder why some local authorities do not spend the money even when they are given it. I guess that is the challenge for all local authorities and perhaps the best way to do this is to highlight and champion the local authorities that are doing well.
Out of 31 local authorities 29 submitted decarbonisation plans. I have asked a very specific question. How have those plans just sat there? Have the other two local authorities, which did not submit plans, done so now? Equally significantly, has the Department now issued directions that they have until 7 March to direct the local authorities to make-----
I think Deputy Connolly has taken a third slot. Are we on another question?
No, I did not.
Are we on the first oral question?
We are not. I beg your pardon. I was in my second minute of the priority question.
I think we have taken that. Deputy Connolly is up next for the next oral question.
That is okay.