I want to raise the climate crisis with the Taoiseach. Today, we see the devastating report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council. They tell us that on its current trajectory, the Government will clearly miss our legally binding 2030 climate targets. We all know the consequences of that failure will be enormous. That is set out in the report: €26 billion in fines; and the really serious impact upon generations to come who will see a future stolen from them, generations who rely on us to take the necessary actions now to cut our emissions, tackle climate change and protect our biodiversity.

The report is significant but it is not news. The Taoiseach and his Government colleagues must have known about the missed targets and this projection because they have seen so many public bodies already telling them about Government failure on this, for example, the SEAI and the EPA. While an ignorant failure of policy could be forgiven, this is a conscious failure of political will. There is no accountability for the Government's failure either.

Last week, the Taoiseach told the House that he had noticed, I think from the Opposition, a "deliberate attempt" to present this Government as rowing back on climate change. The Taoiseach said there had been no resiling by this Government from climate action but, in fact, has there not been a clear rowing back from the position on climate taken by the previous Government, of which the Green Party was a member? For example, only months after denying this would happen, the Government will now import dirty LNG into our country and it has abandoned, in its programme for Government, the spending ratio for active travel and public transport. The Government's programme will, instead, favour the building of "Roads, baby, roads", as Trump might say. Incredibly, the programme for Government makes no reference to the legally required carbon budgets or to sectoral emissions ceilings which might set a pathway for achieving net zero.

We all know that Ireland's 2021 climate law sets a 2030 target for reducing emissions by 51%. Crucial to achieving that target and setting us on the right pathway are our three five-year carbon budgets. This process is very important and it envisages review by the Oireachtas on an ongoing basis. It makes the climate Minister responsible for updating the annual climate action plan but the Minister has not published this year's new climate action plan. Despite the fact we are now in the third month of 2025, there is no Oireachtas climate committee.

Therefore there is very little opportunity for accountability. The Taoiseach will not even facilitate the flow of information. It seems all reports of the climate action delivery board have been removed from the gov.ie website.

It seems climate is not a priority for the Government, despite the Taoiseach’s protestations to the contrary, and it seems it is making no effort to meet the 2030 targets. I have one burning question: does the Taoiseach admit that the legally binding climate targets will not and cannot be met by his Government?

First, I reject what the Deputy has said. Is léir gurb í an ghéarchéim aeráide an ceann is tábhachtaí atá os comhair na Dála seo. Táimid sa Rialtas ag déanamh gach aon iarracht déileáil leis an bhfadhb sin agus tá sé sin le feiscint ón méid infheistíochta atá curtha isteach againn i bpolasaithe éagsúla a bhaineann leis an ngéarchéim aeráide.

There is no resiling or rowing back from our commitment to addressing the issue of climate change because it is existential to our society and the world at large. We are absolutely committed to delivering on our targets and responsibility. I do not accept the Deputy’s analysis. I think the past four years were very significant and the previous Government took very decisive action in respect of fundamental issues pertaining to climate, not least the commitment to offshore renewables in addition to the onshore renewable story.

The EPA’s most recent emission inventory report from July shows a decrease of 6.8% in Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. It is the lowest greenhouse gas emissions have been in three decades, below the 1990 baseline. This is despite a population increase of more than 1.5 million since 1990, the addition of more than 1 million new homes since 1990 and in excess of 1 million extra vehicles on our roads. In many respects, when the growth in population and growth in economic activity is juxtaposed with the reduction in emissions, what Ireland has achieved is quite a remarkable story, but it is not enough. Electricity in particular, industry, agriculture and the residential sector all show decreases in emissions. That is significant. There is huge spending. IFAC says “Spend more”. We are spending on the grid and on retrofits. We are spending right across the board. Fertiliser use has come down. We have to deal with realities as they present themselves. We have to bring people with us too in respect of climate change.

On the Deputy’s phrase “dirty LNG”, the memo today is about energy security. We have a responsibility that if anything were to happen or interrupt our current gas supplies, we would need a backup. It would be irresponsible not to do that. We are doing it in a way that is consistent with the European frameworks and the legal advice we have received in respect of that issue. It is not good enough for the Deputy to throw it aside as “dirty LNG”. There is a fundamental question. If something were to happen, and all the risk assessments have been done, and the gas supplies we are currently importing were interrupted, I would like to see what the Deputy would be saying in this House when the economy would crash.

I think we can agree on one thing: climate change is existential. The threat of climate change is clearly existential. Ach níl an Rialtas ag déanamh gach iarracht. The Government is not making every effort; clearly not. The trajectory of this Government is on course to miss climate targets, and to say otherwise flies in the face of the evidence that is being presented to the Taoiseach and all of us by these bodies.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the Taoiseach's reliance on inflated home delivery targets during the general election. He cannot rely on a target that he knows he will not achieve. There must be an awareness of this across government. If the Tánaiste was furious at that €120,000 spent on the scanner in the National Gallery, he will be incandescent about the €26 billion fine that the Government will face when we miss these targets in 2030.

Given that, on the current trajectory, the Government is on course to miss climate targets, what will it change immediately to ensure we will meet our climate targets? Can he admit to this House that the Government will not be able to meet them?

The Deputy seems to have deliberately used the upper range. It is from €8 billion to €26 billion.

That is €26 billion.

It is highly speculative and highly uncertain about what will transpire. I listened to the authors this morning.

Suffice it to say, the Government is committed to achieving our targets. It will be very challenging, because as soon as we move on any one of them, different elements of the Opposition will oppose some of the measures we have announced and taken. A huge retrofitting programme is under way and our public transport usage is up 25%. We are fully committed to all the public transport initiatives we committed to in the previous Government. The issue is when those get realised and get through the various plannings and so on, be that metro or light rail in the various cities, but they are all progressing and will progress, and they are not mutually exclusive from road building either. If you talk to people in Macroom, they will tell you very quickly about the impact on emissions in the towns of Macroom or Ballyvourney of the Ballyvourney bypass. This idea that all roads are bad is a nonsense too, because sometimes they can be hugely environmentally beneficial to residential communities who have had to suffer terrible emissions and have been trapped in emissions clusters because of the lack of bypasses and so forth.