I ask that the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs come before the House at some point to discuss the competitiveness funding that the European Commission is proposing and, in particular, the loss of the EU life projects. There is a proposal on the table to have life funding subsumed into the EU Competitiveness Fund. That would be a retrograde step. If people look at the Corncrake LIFE project, LIFE on Machair and the Wild Atlantic Nature project, which have all been successful, they will see that this is money that embeds itself in rural communities across Ireland. If the fund is lost, it will be lost to Irish farmers. It is important that the Minister of State come to House for a debate.

The COP30 discussions begin today. The Taoiseach is there. I was speaking to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, earlier. The EU has done a sneaky deal to try to reach the 90% cuts by 2040 by paying for projects elsewhere. This is akin to Andy Dufresne in "The Shawshank Redemption" pulling the rubble from his cell and redistributing it in the exercise yard. What is happening is that the EU is heading out to COP30 with a deal done to allow it to try to use offsets to reach targets, because many countries are failing to do so. It is important that the Irish Government show leadership at COP30. By all accounts, I do not think it is going to be a successful COP. The mood music is not great. To date, the European Union has shown leadership on climate emissions. Many countries of the European Union have reached their objectives and targets, but many are not going to. The Irish Government is seeking a deal to try to meet the challenges relating to agriculture out to 2030. There are significant challenges in that regard.

I hope that the Irish Government and the Minister show leadership at the Belém talks on COP30 because the Irish Government will take up the Presidency of the European Union next year and will be leading on the COP31 talks. Whatever about the outcomes of this, which remain to be seen, it is critically important that if we have the EU climate Commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, saying that the planet does not care about where we achieve the emissions, we say that the planet does care. We all have to do it. It is about burden sharing, fairness and every country playing its part in respect of what is the single greatest threat facing humanity. I hope that we see positive soundings from the talks in Belém. I hope that our Taoiseach and Minister show leadership on this issue.

I welcome Stephen, Jennifer and Claire, who are staff of the south western drugs task force. They are guests of our colleague Senator McCarthy. I hope they enjoy their visit. I welcome the second lot of students from St. Clare's College, Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan. They are guests of Deputy Brendan Smith and Senator Diarmuid Wilson. Enjoy your stay here today.