Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 November 2017
49. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he has considered the Citizens' Assembly's recommendations on climate change; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49088/17]
View answerThe contributions by the members of the Citizens’ Assembly to this critical and urgent issue, which included consideration of a range of detailed presentations by technical experts in meetings over the course of two full weekends, have been welcomed by me and by the Government as a whole.
I understand that the Citizens' Assembly must now communicate its report and recommendations to the Houses of the Oireachtas for further consideration. The topics considered by the Citizens’ Assembly as part of its module on climate change and the recommendations arising from this module address a range of Government policies and activities. The Government will study the Assembly’s report and recommendations systematically and comprehensively when it receives them and will provide its response to each recommendation of the Assembly in the Houses of the Oireachtas in due course.
In the context of the Assembly’s work on this module, I also understand that it has been invited to consider how the National Dialogue on Climate Action should engage with the wider public to create awareness, engagement and motivation to act in relation to the challenges of climate change. I expect that the report of the Citizens' Assembly will provide valuable input and ideas from which to draw on in the preparation of further activities under the National Dialogue in the coming months.
In the context of my engagement with representatives of Irish NGOs at COP 23 last week I was also pleased to note the very positive response to the work of the Citizens’ Assembly and the suggestion that, together with the National Dialogue on Climate Action, these models for participatory engagement could be showcased at future COP meetings in the spirit of the ‘Talanoa’ Dialogue that is now to be taken forward under the Fijian COP Presidency.
In general terms, I was pleased to note that many of the recommendations adopted by the members of the Assembly, as reported on during the second weekend of this module, are already being addressed in the National Mitigation Plan and in the implementation of the Energy White Paper, but I also acknowledge that other recommendations will need further consideration in the context of the Government’s response to the report of the Assembly.
