Senator John McGahon - speech from 14 Oct 2020

Thank you very much, Laskier-Loch. Minister, yesterday in the Dáil, you yourself and I quote said that the climate crisis is the greatest crisis facing our generation. And as a result of my role in this chamber as the Fine Gael, Seanad spokesperson for climate action, I want to focus the majority of my remarks on the climate action measures that we put forward in the budget yesterday. The budget had so many measures in it that it was transformative in terms of a green aspect. And it's going to really help us as a society really make the move towards a green economy and a low carbon society more importantly. And we did that through a whole range of measures. But when I look at the amount of effort that governments around the world are putting towards the COVID crisis, I really need to think we need to take the energy that we're putting behind the COVID crisis and move that towards climate action. Because that is the greatest enemy that the safety of this planet is really facing. When we look at the carbon tax that we've increased, and you said it yesterday, Minister yourself, not one single cent or euro, is going to go to government expenditure, it's going to go right back to Irish citizens to help the most vulnerable in our communities, reduce their carbon emissions, reduce their footprint, insulate their homes. And we saw that with the retrofit programme, which as far as I'm concerned, is one of the most ambitious projects actually in this budget, where we're going to be able to retrofit homes right across Ireland, reduce people's energy bills, and that will have an overall benefit again towards our climate. We look at the warmer home scheme, where we've actually put 100 109 million euro, which is going to go towards the free energy upgrades of people from low income families and backgrounds. We're talking to businesses about the targets that they must reach, and how they can go about meeting those reduction targets. Equally, the grants ministers that have come along for electric vehicles are very substantial. We have seen grants for home charging points, we have seen grants for public charging points, and more importantly, we've seen even more investment than ever before going And the way we really make the transition to electric vehicles simple is making it simple for individuals to make that change over to electric vehicles. And we're doing that by putting substantial money behind that. Minister, to conclude, because I don't want to take any more time away from colleagues, this was a very transformative budget, in terms of green issues, in terms of transforming our economy and our society towards a greener economy. of this country meeting its required targets by the end of this decade in 2030. Thank you, minister. Thank you, both.