On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, issued a stark and frightening report on humanity's impact on the world around us. The day after the report was published, the Government did a U-turn on carbon tax. Carbon tax is not the be-all and end-all of climate action and it needs to be balanced with supports to stop fuel poverty. This move showed exactly where the Government's priorities lie. As Professor John FitzGerald has said, carbon pricing alone will not deliver the necessary emission reductions but delivering emission reductions without a sufficient carbon price will almost be impossible and much more expensive. The Government has a Minister with responsibility for climate action who did not even seek an increase in the carbon tax in the budget. He should resign on that issue alone and that is before we get into the issues of the impropriety of his dining habits.

The Government has a national development plan, NDP, which has not been climate-proofed. At meetings of the Joint Committee on Climate Action, three Secretaries General have looked like deer in the headlights when asked how we will close the 100 million tonne emissions gap. The Government has a transport plan that is all roads, roads and more roads. The NDP provides for more than 60 motorways or national road projects. There is not a single major public transport project in construction today. With the exception of the Royal Canal greenway, there is not a single cycling project in construction today. The Government keeps pushing public transport projects into the future. It delayed metro north by a decade. The DART Interconnector is in the plan for after 2027, if at all, and the Navan railway line, which was ready to go, is also on the long finger for at least another decade. What is the public transport plan for the Tánaiste's city of Cork?

The Government's tokenistic actions on climate and environment have been woeful. Last month, Fine Gael launched its very own green week. The irony of having a single green week where the party deflected its own shameful lack of real action on climate issues onto the people seems to have been totally lost on Fine Gael. The Taoiseach highlights the benefits of switching to a reusable coffee cup while, at the same time, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment continues to block the Green Party's Waste Reduction Bill.

The Government has opposed our Bill and the Labour Party Bill to ban microbeads, has opposed Deputy Bríd Smith's climate emergency Bill, and has continually declared that Ireland is open for business when it comes to fossil fuel extraction. At the end of the day, on the international stage, Ireland is the second worst performer in the EU on climate change. We are bottom of the class.

The Ministers assure us we will have massive reductions in our emissions by 2030 but no one can see that. The Committee on Climate Action says we are completely off course, and the Environmental Protection Agency predicts our emissions in 2035 will be higher than they are today, yet we are presented with a national development plan with no idea of climate impact. Does the Government accept that the national development plan is not fit for purpose? It is not climate-proofed, it is not real climate action and it needs to change.

The Deputy asked many questions. I agree with her that the report published at the start of the week needs to be a wake-up call for us all on climate action and its prioritisation in everything we do, from education and transport to waste and planning for the future in how we live, move around and so on. As a Minister who has been part of the story of the Ireland 2040 plan, which the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government is now delivering on, I know that a big part of that discussion was about climate and changing how Ireland functions in the context of the responsibilities we have to reduce emissions.

The decisions made this week on carbon were the correct ones. We already know both petrol and diesel have increased significantly in price in recent months and will continue to increase because world oil prices are increasing. We need to learn lessons from the water debates that if one is to change how people perceive increased charges, and if one hopes to change their behaviour by doing so, one needs to bring people along. This Government will commit to steady increases over time in carbon taxes but we will try to bring people with us rather than tell them how it needs to be without preparing the ground for doing that.

On the national development plan and the €116 billion we are committing, approximately 20% of that expenditure is linked to climate action, more efficient energy and more efficient transport movements. In regard to planning for my city, which I hope the Deputy might look at in a bit more detail, we are planning €200 million of expenditure in new BusConnects projects. We are planning for a light rail system for the first time in the city. We are planning for much higher density and much higher quality buildings in order that people can live closer to each other and benefit from real economies of scale that do not require people to drive their own car to work any longer because we are planning for a more climate-efficient society in the future.

Much of what we are doing and have done in this budget through vehicle registration tax changes, supporting electric transport and public transport, and providing more funding for greenways next year, is to ensure the green agenda is real in government.

Monday's report was obviously not a wake-up call for Government. In Cork, all that the Government has agreed is to expand the road network.

To return to my main question, the national development plan is not a plan to achieve a low-carbon economy and it is not fit for purpose. This is my main question today to the Minister. Will he admit it is not fit for purpose? No strategic environmental assessment was carried out for the national development plan. There was only one for the national planning framework but, most importantly, it did not provide a quantitative level of emissions reductions at all - no numbers and no target.

The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment spends so much time talking about the one in five euro that will be spent on climate action under the national development plan, as the Tánaiste has just mentioned also, but they fail to note that €13 billion of that €21 billion was already committed by the ESB to standard energy expenditure anyway. The budget provided for €25 million for retrofitting the State's stock of 150,000. We need €5 billion. At this rate, it will take 40 years. The Government is not serious about climate change, or at least that is what all the evidence suggests. If I am wrong and the Government cares, will it lead and take action?

Limiting climate change to 1.5° Celsius is a matter of survival for us all. It is not about the distant future. We have 12 years for this Government to show leadership and take brave and bold political decisions. Does it have that courage? If it does, it should take the brave and bold step here in the Dáil today and admit that the national development plan is not fit for purpose and it needs to change.

As someone who spent many hours trying to be part of designing a much more sustainable way forward for this country through 20-year planning for the first time, and as the person who ensured independent review of the sustainability of that plan happened, I will not say that our national development plan is not fit for purpose on climate change.

Where are the figures? We cannot see them if they are not there.

Sometimes I think the Green Party does not want this Government to be seen to be achieving on climate change.

I do not want this Government.

The Green Party could have been part of this Government but it chose not to be.

The Green Party could have joined us.

It chose not to be because it did not want to take on the responsibility of Government. It is unfortunate because I would have liked the Green Party to be part of it. I ask it not to start painting a picture which is not accurate. Let us talk seriously about what is and is not happening. More needs to be done on climate change, which I accept, and more needs to be done on emissions. Certain sectors in Ireland are not performing on reducing emissions as well as they need to. We want to work with the Green Party on that.

The Government needs to act first.

The Government must lead.

What I will not accept is the painting of an inaccurate picture of the prioritisation of climate in the context of the policy and funding decisions we are making and have made this week.

That concludes our extended Leaders' Questions. Before proceeding to questions on promised legislation, I understand the Government Chief Whip, Deputy Joe McHugh, has a business proposal to put to the House.