I welcome the very comprehensive motion that has been set out by Deputy O'Gorman. It is now accepted that we will miss our 2030 binding target of a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. At last, Ministers are accepting that. The Government has failed to develop offshore wind energy, anaerobic digestion and hydrogeneration, and it is only starting with solar. This means just not climate and environmental damage but also economic damage. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council estimate that we face fines of between €8 billion and €26 billion due to our failure to meet our international obligations, which are also moral obligations. Meanwhile data centres continue to be built at pace. They are currently using almost one quarter of our electricity supply, but sure it is okay; we will supply them with electricity for roughly half the cost of what Joe and Mary Public pay in their household. The next big, bright idea is that we will import fracked gas from America. During Trump's recent pronouncements, he said we need to do this. When the Taoiseach was over there, I heard him talking about it. We will have it in a floating terminal in the Shannon Estuary, even though the exploration and extraction of fracked gas is banned here. The latest one is the Critical Infrastructure Bill. This is the next thing coming down the line. One section alone - section 7 - is there for no other purpose than to facilitate huge environmental destruction at the stroke of a Minister's pen and this needs to be stopped. It is clearly designed to override any environmental concerns the county councils, local communities or anybody else has. The Minister can simply disregard the scientific evidence of extensive climate damage and overrule it. Guess what? It will facilitate private investors along with public projects. It is clear what we are doing. We are dancing to the tune of the American Chamber of Commerce. We are being told our economic model is broken so we will just keep going with it; we will just keep jumping in. That is what the Government is doing here. Projects will be given the green light and planners at local authority level and scientists will just have to look on in horror. Data centres, fracked gas terminals and all sorts of dodgy mining will be made easy. Instead, the Government should speed up the delivery of offshore wind energy, wave energy, anaerobic digestion which it has completely ignored, hydro which it has completely ignored, and solar which is only moving at a snail's pace. It should ease the tax burden on HVO fuels for heavy transport and buses. It needs to expand the home retrofit scheme to reduce the amount of fuel used and speed up the warmer home scheme.

Sentiment score: -0.04