Ní aontaím in aon chor leis an Teachta. Go háirithe, níl aon bhaint ag an gcinneadh seo atá tógtha ag an Rialtas lenár bpolasaithe i dtaobh ár neodracht mhíleata. Níl aon bhaint aige leis in aon chor. Tá sé in am dúinn an triple lock a chur ar leataobh agus as seo amach, nuair a bheidh an reachtaíocht imithe tríd an Dáil, beimid i gceannas maidir leis an gcinneadh atá á dhéanamh againn ó thaobh ár saighdiúirí. I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. He will be aware that in my previous capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence, I brought a memo to the Government in April last year indicating and identifying the need for legislation, and instructing my officials to draft such legislation, to replace the triple lock. He will also recall that I established a very effective national consultative forum on international security policy and foreign policy, which his party opposed. I could never comprehend why it was so opposed to a basic debate on fairly fundamental issues. What emerged from the consultative forum is that the triple lock had nothing to do with the perception of Ireland on the international stage as being an honest broker and a country that looks at issues through the lens of international humanitarian law, which we do. Generally, all the contributors, and they were diverse, made the point that Ireland has been very active on the global situation, uses the multilateral institutions very effectively and also that we are generous in terms of our work through Irish Aid and through development policy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and other locations. Generally speaking, it has been an active conduct of foreign policy that has earned Ireland strong credentials. We need to get rid of some of the mythology surrounding all of this that sometimes gets articulated by the Deputy's party and others. In respect of the triple lock, it is very clear to us that in an exercise of sovereignty, it should be the Oireachtas that decides primarily the peacekeeping missions that we send our military to, not Russia or any other member of the Security Council. Russia should not have a veto. China should not have a veto. The US should not have a veto over where we send our soldiers in the pursuit of peace. It is as simple as that. When we were on the Security Council some years back, there were many challenges in terms, for example, of our attempts to keep humanitarian corridors open. In terms of north-west Syria and the humanitarian corridor to Tigray in Ethiopia, Ireland fought very hard to keep those corridors open. When we sought a resolution linking climate and security, for example, at the Security Council, we made enormous progress in endeavouring to get such a resolution passed. Guess what? It was vetoed at the end of the day by Russia. This is about us exercising our own sovereignty in respect of participation in peacekeeping missions. The geopolitical situation has changed very dramatically. We have no intention to abandon our policy of military non-alignment. We are not a member of NATO. We are militarily neutral. We have never been politically neutral. Deputy Doherty may have been but the State has never been politically neutral. We are a member of the European Union. We have been part of common security and defence in the European Union from the very beginning; we never opted out. In respect of President von der Leyen's contribution today, it is important to read it. There is a fundamental and profound challenge facing Europe now. We cannot put our heads in the sand and ignore that reality, and it will need increased military expenditure. There is no question but it will, across Europe and, indeed, here.
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I have heard the Deputy suggest from time to time that we have a referendum to insert into the Constitution a clause dealing with neutrality. Sinn Féin has never published any suggested wording, any suggested definition-----
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-----in respect of the type-----
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I did not interrupt the Deputy. With respect-----
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I did not interrupt the Deputy.
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Here we go again.
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There is a reason I am putting the-----
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There is a reason I am putting the question.
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I do not think there is any need to answer anymore.
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First, I reject what the Deputy has said. Is léir gurb í an ghéarchéim aeráide an ceann is tábhachtaí atá os comhair na Dála seo. Táimid sa Rialtas ag déanamh gach aon iarracht déileáil leis an bhfadhb sin agus tá sé sin le feiscint ón méid infheistíochta atá curtha isteach againn i bpolasaithe éagsúla a bhaineann leis an ngéarchéim aeráide. There is no resiling or rowing back from our commitment to addressing the issue of climate change because it is existential to our society and the world at large. We are absolutely committed to delivering on our targets and responsibility. I do not accept the Deputy’s analysis. I think the past four years were very significant and the previous Government took very decisive action in respect of fundamental issues pertaining to climate, not least the commitment to offshore renewables in addition to the onshore renewable story. The EPA’s most recent emission inventory report from July shows a decrease of 6.8% in Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. It is the lowest greenhouse gas emissions have been in three decades, below the 1990 baseline. This is despite a population increase of more than 1.5 million since 1990, the addition of more than 1 million new homes since 1990 and in excess of 1 million extra vehicles on our roads. In many respects, when the growth in population and growth in economic activity is juxtaposed with the reduction in emissions, what Ireland has achieved is quite a remarkable story, but it is not enough. Electricity in particular, industry, agriculture and the residential sector all show decreases in emissions. That is significant. There is huge spending. IFAC says “Spend more”. We are spending on the grid and on retrofits. We are spending right across the board. Fertiliser use has come down. We have to deal with realities as they present themselves. We have to bring people with us too in respect of climate change. On the Deputy’s phrase “dirty LNG”, the memo today is about energy security. We have a responsibility that if anything were to happen or interrupt our current gas supplies, we would need a backup. It would be irresponsible not to do that. We are doing it in a way that is consistent with the European frameworks and the legal advice we have received in respect of that issue. It is not good enough for the Deputy to throw it aside as “dirty LNG”. There is a fundamental question. If something were to happen, and all the risk assessments have been done, and the gas supplies we are currently importing were interrupted, I would like to see what the Deputy would be saying in this House when the economy would crash.
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The Deputy seems to have deliberately used the upper range. It is from €8 billion to €26 billion.
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It is highly speculative and highly uncertain about what will transpire. I listened to the authors this morning. Suffice it to say, the Government is committed to achieving our targets. It will be very challenging, because as soon as we move on any one of them, different elements of the Opposition will oppose some of the measures we have announced and taken. A huge retrofitting programme is under way and our public transport usage is up 25%. We are fully committed to all the public transport initiatives we committed to in the previous Government. The issue is when those get realised and get through the various plannings and so on, be that metro or light rail in the various cities, but they are all progressing and will progress, and they are not mutually exclusive from road building either. If you talk to people in Macroom, they will tell you very quickly about the impact on emissions in the towns of Macroom or Ballyvourney of the Ballyvourney bypass. This idea that all roads are bad is a nonsense too, because sometimes they can be hugely environmentally beneficial to residential communities who have had to suffer terrible emissions and have been trapped in emissions clusters because of the lack of bypasses and so forth.
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They may be looking for a bypass too.
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First, Ireland has distinguished itself in the peacekeeping missions that have been deployed all over the world. We pay tribute to members of Óglaigh na hÉireann for discharging their duties honourably and with great professionalism. They are much sought after in trouble spots across the world because of that professionalism and commitment. I will put that on the record. Second, Ireland is very committed to multilateralism. I have been honoured to address the United Nations, and its various forums, on a number of occasions. I am a multilateralist at heart. The only way small nations can have ultimate security is by being multilateral and by engaging in international forums, and Ireland does that exceptionally well. We have a brilliant diplomatic network that represents us at different UN, EU and international forums. We have been invited onto the G20 because of our activist position on international affairs. Ending the triple lock in no way undermines commitment to multilateralism and I think we need to demythologise this. How does it undermine our commitment to multilateralism? It simply does not. The consultative forum brought that out. It is by dint of our performance in pushing issues like women in peace and security as an agenda item for the UN, for example, or profiling the shocking treatment of women in Afghanistan at the UN that distinguishes Ireland in terms of policies. We led the clusters munition convention over two decades ago with four other countries - Norway, Peru and others - to try to get rid of cluster munitions from battlefields and the conduct of war. Let us not undermine ourselves. There is a fundamental paradox in what the Deputy is saying. Three years ago, Russia brutally invaded Ukraine, bombing civilian infrastructure and seeking to undermine the UN Charter. Yet, the Deputy is saying that Russia gives legitimacy to any peacekeeping mission we would embark upon. Russia is on the Security Council. That is what we are talking about here. We are now saying that those the Deputy accuses of ripping up the multilateral order should be given a veto as to whether Ireland participates in peacekeeping.
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That does not add up. It is completely in conflict. Both principles do not align at all. It is because of how Russia has been performing - others maybe put particularly Russia, and this did not just start with the invasion three years ago - that I cannot in conscience stand over a situation where we would say Russia should have a veto over whether Irish troops participate in peacekeeping missions.
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Looking at the influence of the Wagner Group in the Sahel in Africa, providing security to rogue and puppet regimes, are we really saying that is the country that should veto whether we participate in peacekeeping or not?
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Because of war.
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That quotation was from nearly a decade ago. The Deputy did not address anything I put to him.
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Three years ago we had a state like Russia upend the multilateral order, upend the UN Charter and invade a peaceful country like Ukraine. I was the Minister for Defence for two years before becoming Taoiseach and saw at first hand how the existing legislation restricts our capacity to participate in overseas events. Even the number of 12, for example, is ridiculously low and is hampering our efforts to get in to help civilians in very difficult situations, be it in Sudan or elsewhere, and to extricate them from trouble spots. We need far more flexibility than the current framework gives us. Without question, watching what has been happening in the Security Council for the past number of years, I have come to the view that there is no way. A number of peace missions will emerge from it. We have not had one sanctioned by the Security Council since 2014. As the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, knows, it was at the eleventh hour that we got permission for the continuation of Operation ALTHEA, which enabled us to continue to participate, but only just.
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Defective concrete blocks is a complex issue. This Government has been engaging with homeowners and various organisations from the very beginning. I met with some in my previous time as Taoiseach. The 2025 funding for this initiative has increased by over 50% from €45 million to €70 million. That means something is going on. There is activity, without question. The overall scheme is expected to cost €2.2 billion. The Government is committed to that and did commit to that. I am informed that, currently, there are more than 2,000 homeowners at various stages of the scheme. Changes are on the way. Grant rates were set and increased in 2024, based on expert advice, at a level that ensures homeowners will get the money they need to put their homes right. To ensure the grant scheme follows the most up-to-date science, changes were made to the scheme late in 2024 to take account of the most recent research. A forthcoming Bill will make amendments to the grant scheme to allow changes to be implemented by the administrators of the scheme, namely, the local authorities. There has been progress since the Act came in in 2022 and commenced in June 2023 and, as the Deputy has said, there have been various changes in respect of that. There has been an increase in the scheme grant rates of between 7.4% and approximately 8.7%. Again, the scheme is kept under constant review by the Department. It has identified the process of reviewed changes to the scheme that will make it better for homeowners. That will be made shortly in a defective concrete amendment Bill. The programme for Government commits to undertaking the planned review of the scheme. The Deputy is correct. The forthcoming Bill will address matters such as the application of increased scheme rates and the overall cap, along with some other technical amendments to ensure the smooth operation of the grant scheme for homeowners. The Deputy is correct to say that the NSAI review is under way. That is awaited and is expected to be completed perhaps in quarter 1 of this year. That will obviously be important in terms of future amendments to the scheme or policy options in respect of it. However, as the Deputy knows, an expert group has been formed under the chair, Paul Forde, to examine all research to date to provide advice as to the implications of all this research to the grant scheme. There is an independent appeals panel as well and that has commenced the process of assessing appeals.
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I am not in a position to give the Deputy dates or timelines today. There is work to be done on the legislation. Suffice to say that a comprehensive commitment has been given here by the last Government and followed through by this Government. The NSAI is currently examining the situation in terms of the most up-to-date scientific advice in respect of all of this. We will continue to work with stakeholders and representative groups in pursuing this and in getting this scheme going, or rather not getting it going but continuing it. There are 2,000 people engaging at different stages of the scheme. We just need to deliver it as quickly and as timely as we possibly can. There is a significant grant. Huge money has been allocated. There is no point saying otherwise.
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