There is a phrase in the climate community to "do the maths." The maths is simple and it would be appropriate to put on the junior certificate maths paper. If there is X amount of carbon that we can produce into the atmosphere and if we know that the known fossil fuel reserves, leaving aside the stuff we have not found yet, is four times that, we have to keep four fifths of the known carbon reserves in the ground. There is something wrong when on the day the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment had his all of Government climate plan meeting in Croke Park to discuss the new all of Government climate plan, his Department issued a licence to Total and Providence, and yesterday, on the very day that the Cabinet subcommittee on climate met, the Department issued a licence to Exxon Mobil and Chinese Nation Offshore Oil Corporation. That has to stop and that has to change.

The position is that it is about maths. We are 84% dependent on fossil fuels and that will not change overnight. The ambition of Europe is to go from 16% renewables to 32% by 2030. That will still leave huge dependence on fossil fuels in Ireland and in Europe. Our choice is whether, by abandoning exploration, we switch to fracked gas from the US or to gas coming from Russia or Saudi Arabia in the Middle East and sacrifice the revenue that comes into the Exchequer that can help us fund the changes we need, or do we switch that money to paying these oligarchs from abroad for the way in which they generate fossil fuels. The logic is that we have to change our dependence on fossil fuels. That is the change we have to make and pretending that can be done by some sleight of hand is just not realistic. The Deputy is fooling the people.

The Government is giving it away to the big multinational corporations.