We need to restore our climate reputation as a country, not just because we are facing €500 million in fines every year but because moving from worst in class to best in class, which is possible, would make this country better in many ways. The Dáil has a role to play. We should pass Deputy Pringle's divestment Bill, which will be up for discussion in two weeks. Similarly, we should pass the Green Party's Waste Reduction Bill 2017 which would help us to deliver a circular economy. We should pass Deputy Bríd Smith's climate crisis Bill, which would keep those fossil fuels in the ground. Goldman Sachs, Coca-Cola and ExxonMobil would not like that, but the Irish people are behind it and want to see it happen. We have the numbers in the Dáil. The only problem is Fine Gael. Fine Gael is the climate laggard, not the Irish people, and it needs to change.

The problem is that this change is greater than anything that the former Taoiseach, Mr. Seán Lemass, and Dr. T.K. Whitaker tried to do in the late 1950s and we have no one on Merrion Street willing to show such leadership now. That is what the Climate Action Network report and Citizens' Assembly said, and they were right. It is the Government that is in the dock.

To tackle this problem, we should think global and act local, which is an old green adage. The new economic model will be dependent on building healthy communities where quality housing is within walking or cycling distance of local services. To do that, we need strong local government, which means putting to the people next May the question of having directly elected mayors in every city. I have someone in mind, a modern Whitaker, who could lead Limerick into becoming a climate treaty city. I have someone in mind who would set Cork free from Dublin rule. I have someone in mind who could lead Galway in setting the west awake and someone who could make Waterford the true capital of the south east. In Dublin, we need a mayor to solve our terrible transport and housing crises. The Ministers for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, are not solving them.

We need to say to the St. Michael's estate team that we will go the cost rental route. We need to stop Transport Infrastructure Ireland building ever larger motorways into Dublin and bringing more cars in, resulting in us having to dig up our front gardens when what we should be doing is using those engineers to build greenways everywhere and turn Dublin into what it should be, namely, a great garden city.

The same applies in rural Ireland. We need a national land use plan that treats the whole country as a national park rather than the illegal dumping ground we saw last night. That is necessary if we are to plant 20,000 ha of new forestry and create a national rainforest. To make all of this happen, the Oireachtas committee on climate change that we are about to establish needs to work. It must start in September, finish by the end of the year and have the seven Secretaries General attend on Wednesday afternoons in October and November.

It must build a new national energy and climate plan, which we have to do for Europe, because the Government's current plan does not work. I do not believe it. Internationally, no one believes it. It needs to change. Is the Taoiseach willing to change or is Fine Gael sticking with the status quo with fossil fuels and with turning Ireland's reputation brown rather than the green it should be? We need to be orange and green in reality, not just as marketing spin.

I look forward to seeing the outcome of the Oireachtas committee's work. I hope that will be done on an all-party basis and not on a partisan basis. We are much more likely to see it produce a valuable outcome if it adopts an all-party, consensual approach rather than an adversarial or prosecutorial one. I hope it will start in that vein.

Tomorrow, the Minister, Deputy Naughten and I, and others, will launch the climate action fund. It is a €500 million fund that we are setting aside, funded by the National Oil Reserves Agency, NORA, levy that we place on oil. That fund will be worth €500 million, to be drawn down over the next ten years. We will encourage businesses, ITs, universities, NGOs, the community sector and anyone who has good ideas as to how we can bring about step changes in how we treat our climate to bid for that money. I look forward to the launch of that tomorrow.

We will also outline in greater detail how Project Ireland 2040 will help us to meet our climate change obligations and to move from where we are now to a low-carbon economy and society. The kind of measure we will pursue is that, from next year, any new bus bought for Bus Éireann or Dublin Bus will have to be a low emission or zero emission vehicle. We have also confirmed that, by 2025, we will take coal off the grid entirely, becoming one of the first countries in the world, certainly in Europe, not to use coal, a very dirty fuel-----

We are still missing all the targets.

-----to power our electricity system. The phasing out of peat subsidies is under way. Peat is a very dirty fuel and burning that contributes considerably to climate change. We are also going to see real, substantial investment in transport now that we can afford to do it, with things like the electrification of more of the commuter rail network around Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Wicklow and Louth in particular reducing emissions. People have seen the plans for ambitious projects such as MetroLink and BusConnects in Dublin, Cork and Galway, and the impact that will have on climate change by reducing bus times by half. Many more people will get out of their cars and use public transport. Those are the kinds of things the Government is doing.

We have fallen behind for a number of reasons. The economic crisis which was inflicted on this country meant that we did not have the money that we needed to invest in infrastructure. The fact that our economy has recovered so fast has led to a rise in emissions. Now that we have a plan and the resources to do it, we can make some meaningful progress in the period ahead and I intend to make sure that happens.

That plan is not ambitious enough. It has to change. I hear what the Taoiseach said at the start. I would agree to work on a cross-party basis. Let us not make this a fight because we will be stronger when we work on it together. To do that, the Government needs to move too and recognise that some of the suggestions on this side of the House, the sorts of Bills that I mentioned, would restore our direction within months. There would not be huge costs and they could be done. They are not easy. It is complex and difficult, and we will make mistakes, but doing nothing is not an option and what the Taoiseach has on the table is not enough.

I am glad that the Taoiseach is doing that community event tomorrow but I have one question on where we should go. It is about strong local government, trusting communities and allowing them to make decisions for themselves. It should be for every city and town. Will the Taoiseach not trust his own instinct? I have heard him say many times, as did the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, that he believes in directly elected representation and mayors. He has said it clearly. We need to be radical, to think big, put aside some of the fears that the public servants have, be political about this and say that we trust our people in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Limerick. Just like Clonakilty has been a huge success with its own mayor, why would we deprive every town of the same success?

Will the Taoiseach, in his community event tomorrow, say whether he will trust communities and allow them to get local leadership to make this transition? We will work with the Taoiseach on this new plan in the committee. We will not be easy to work with because we will demand real change. I hope the Taoiseach is open to that because we need to do that. The Taoiseach's plan is not enough. We will make this work. This Dáil has a job to do. Let us stick with it, not pull a quick election, and do the work we have to do. We are the ones to do it.

First, I hope the Deputy will examine the plan and the proposals that are being launched tomorrow, before concluding that they are not enough.

I have not been invited.

Generally, that is the approach people take to these things. They examine the facts and look at the plans and then a decision is made as to whether they agree with them.

Were you invited, Timmy?

No.

In relation to some of the legislation that is currently before-----

There is no cross-party approach there.

Could the Taoiseach be allowed to answer please?

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. In relation to some of the legislation that is currently before Oireachtas committees, I am told that the Oireachtas Committee on Communication, Climate Action and Environment will be discussing the energy security issue in light of the Solidarity-PBP Bill to ban offshore oil and gas exploration.

The Taoiseach is going out of his way to prevent us doing that.

However, it is important to bear in mind that we will always need a certain amount of oil and gas. We need it for medical devices, some plastics which are necessary, and we need it for aviation fuel. It is important to bear in mind that we may always need, for the foreseeable future anyway, some amount of oil and gas, and it might make more sense if that is our own rather than being imported. Gas is recognised in the energy White Paper as a transition fuel and as we move away from very dirty fuels such as coal and peat, for example, we may need to use natural gas for a period.

I am in favour of directly elected mayors. I have said that before. I do trust people, and the way one trusts people is by putting it to a plebiscite. One does not impose it on people, one puts it to a plebiscite and that is what we intend to do. It is relatively straightforward for Cork, Limerick and Waterford but not so straightforward for Dublin where there are four local authorities. We will need to look at what model might work there, but it is the Government's policy to put plebiscites to the people. We intend to do that next May at the same time as the local and European elections, but one thing we need to work out before that is what it means to have a directly elected mayor. That is what the Minister of State, Deputy John Paul Phelan, is working on now and he will come to Cabinet with it before the recess. If directly elected mayors only have the powers of existing mayors and cathaoirligh, they will not be able to do any of the things Deputy Eamon Ryan mentioned, so what we will need to do at the very least is to transfer the executive power of county and city CEOs to those mayors because it is not the fact that it is an elected position or a five-year position that makes the difference-----

We are way over time.

What makes the difference is the powers and the executive functions one vests in the mayor and that is what we need to resolve.

That concludes Leaders’ Questions.