FF concern over climate Bill 'unfortunate'

SEANAD REPORT:SEANAD DEPUTY leader Dan Boyle (Green Party) acknowledged that those in the ranks of their Government partners were most in need of being convinced that the Climate Change Bill should be supported.

“I think this is very unfortunate, because this is a Government piece of legislation.

“This has been approved by the Cabinet and I believe that at the end of the day these are arguments that have to hold sway,” he said.

Speaking in the second stage debate on the Climate Change Response Bill, Mr Boyle was responding to reservations voiced by a number of Fianna Fáil members.

Denis O’Donovan said that, as it stood, he would find it virtually impossible to support the Bill.

Francie O’Brien urged that the Bill be deferred for further consultation with the stakeholders in the agri-food sector.

John Ellis asked if they were going to tie the hands of future governments.

Feargal Quinn (Ind) contended that Minister for the Environment John Gormley had not properly engaged with the stakeholders and had not taken into account sufficiently the relevant research and modelling by the relevant State agencies.

“I believe that if the Bill is not revisited, it could have an extremely detrimental economic effect on this country at the very time when we need to grow and get on the road to recovery,” Mr Quinn said.

He added that there was a potential for investments totalling “€17 billion” in wind farming in this country.

He could not understand how 300 applications had not been progressed, given that the Green Party had been in power for the last three years.

Fianna Fáil backbenchers now knew what it was like to be misled by the Minister for Finance, as he had done on the leadership of that party, Eugene Regan (FG) said.

The Minister had misled the country on the economy since taking office over two years ago. “He has misled us on turning the corner, bank bonuses, subordinated debt holders and on the EU-IMF bailout.”

In view of the fact that Portugal had been able to avoid such a bailout, the Minister should explain why we had not succeeded in doing so, due to his failure to act in accordance with advice from the European Central Bank, he added.