JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY SECURITY díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 10 Dec 2008

Business of Joint Committee.

Chairman

The minutes of the meeting of 27 November have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed. Any matters arising? No.

Item A is a summary of the final report of the European Parliament's temporary committee on climate change on a future integrated policy on climate change. Is it agreed to note the correspondence? Agreed.

Item B is an e-mail from Mr. Eddie O'Brien from The Hangout, Thurles, County Tipperary, seeking endorsement of his all-weather clothes line as an energy saving product. The photo of the product is in the Chairman's brief. One can have afternoon tea while one's clothes are drying. I propose that we direct this to SEI and ask it to treat it sympathetically.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe

We wish him well but note that the committee does not endorse particular products.

Chairman

We will forward it to SEI. Item C is a letter addressed to me from the Coastal Concern Alliance, enclosing an article from the Journal of Marine Systems which draws attention to the potential impact of large inshore wind farms on marine life through distortion of marine currents. We can deal with this item when dealing with the other item on the agenda on the draft Bill.

Item D is the special report by the Joint Committee on European Scrutiny which is available on the Oireachtas website. It does not request us to do anything. There is a very important conference taking place entitled The Greening of Irish Agriculture — Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change to be held in Dublin Castle on 9 January. The conference should be of interest to members if anyone wishes to take note. Any member interested should contact the clerk.

Deputy Liz McManus

I would be interested.

Chairman

Item F is a list of the decisions made by the Joint Committee on European Scrutiny at its meeting of 25 November. No proposals have been referred to us. We will note that. We will now go into private session so our consultants can advise us on a number of items.

The joint committee went into private session at 2.20 p.m. and resumed in public session at 2.43 p.m.