January 2008

Climate Change and Energy Security

It is opportune to have this debate so soon after the Seanad addressed the issue. In the interim there have been several important international events that require comment to put in context the international debate on climate change. The first was the United Nations conference in Bali, which excited a good deal of media attention, not all favourable. The Irish contribution to that was quite forthright and positive, in a conference that ultimately generated more hope than success. Even that is removed from what, today, we must accept as the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, which has turned out to be an exercise of running to just stand still. Much of that was because the governments of certain nation states operated to ignore and frustrate the will of the rest of the international community, as regards identifying the scale of the problem of climate change and then refusing to make a proportional contribution towards alleviating its consequences. The chief government involved was that of the United States, a country with 5% of the world’s population, 5% of the earth’s landmass, which consumes 25% of all energy resources. That may alter because of political changes occurring in the United States in an election year, but at least Bali brought about some type of admission from the American delegation. It means that we will be adhere to a roadmap that, hopefully, will allow for decisions in Copenhagen about a more successful replacement to Kyoto. That is the best we can hope for in the immediate international political climate.

The United States was not operating on its own, however. A number of countries, while not being as belligerent as America in denying climate change, nonetheless were on a par in ensuring that international action did not occur. It is interesting to see what has happened in many of those countries. Australia was the US’s largest ally in much of this debate. It has now had a change of government, where the policy has been altered. There is now a Labour Government in Australia, which has gained office through the help of a significant increase in the Green Party vote there. The Green Party presence in the Australian Senate is now two and a half times what it was. Countries such as Japan have finally committed to targets, as the European Commission has suggested for 2020.

We are coming to the end of the process and internationally, the Administration in power in the United States is becoming isolated. It is also fair to state the debate within the United States has challenged the orthodoxy of the US Government’s position. At state and municipal levels action is being taken on climate change policies in defiance of the policy advocated by the US Government. I am optimistic that when a change of administration occurs, even if another Republican president takes office, the process will continue and increase in speed.

The second international change which occurred in the interim is that the European Commission has made proposals on how the European Union collectively, and individual European Union member states can address the idea of carbon reductions in the period up to 2020. This was the focus of the Minister’s speech today. Within the EU, Ireland was treated very generously under the Kyoto Protocol. We were allocated a 13% increase above 1990 levels, which we have exceeded by almost twice the amount. In view of this and the economic wealth we attained we will now be asked by the European Commission to initiate large cuts in carbon usage. This will have an economic effect. Fortunately, it seems to be in line with the commitment which exists in the programme for Government that a 3% cut will be achieved on average in the lifetime of the Government. It is hoped succeeding Governments will continue this.

In previous debates in this Chamber we recognised that this should be not a Government versus Opposition issue but one on which all political parties sing from the same hymn sheet. We will have a period of adjustment prior to achieving this stage of political maturity. This Government, which has Green Party participation, has only been in office since June of last year. Several small-scale initiatives have been put in place with regard to tackling the overall problems in this area. However, the reaction these small and modest measures have provoked has not reflected well on the nature of politics or the practice of opposition as usual politics.

This is the case in particular with regard to the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with CFL and LED lighting by 1 January 2009. This proposal was made in the first instance to allow a lead-in period to establish whether it could be done directly and whether problems had to be overcome in terms of consumers and the industry. However, the reaction we saw in certain political circles involved spurious arguments about the health and safety aspects of goods which were already checked and approved for use in households.

Other arguments about losing heat through the replacement of incandescent light bulbs take the nature of the debate we need to have into the realm of the surreal. It does not reflect well on the people making these arguments, and they will face political consequences. I hope now that they have been made the debate can move on to another context. The arguments heard in political circles have been reported in certain media organs.

The interpretation of particular reports or the publication of reports themselves have not been helpful in allowing us to understand the scale of the problem we must face. In its most recent quarterly economic commentary, the ESRI had as an addendum a small report on the possible economic effects of climate change and the policies put in place. It was a dishonest document because its basic thrust was what the cost would be if only one particular action were taken. We saw it repeated on the front pages of certain newspapers, which printed that if we put all the cost onto an electricity bill it would cost households €440. No one is making the argument that we should only do one thing. Government policy is a mixum-gatherum of a range of policy approaches.

As the Minister stated in his speech, these involve defining whether energy use is necessary in all circumstances and seeing where it can be made more efficient. It involves examining whether the buildings we operate can be brought up to speed to achieve maximum efficiency and not only with regard to the production of energy and its ultimate use. It also involves an entire series of measures to reduce dependence on fossil fuel energy by promoting renewable energy sources.

During recent months, a number of measures have been introduced which reflect all of these policy areas, including incentives, carrots and small sticks. Part of this process will see the publication today of a Finance Bill, the second part of a budget package which will contain additional measures. These will show not only the impact of the Green Party in Government but also the need for many of these incentives to be put in place as quickly as possible.

The other aspect of media coverage I wish to discuss is with regard to one media organ. I am slow to refer to it because as a publication it is very much a comic and should not be referred to as a national newspaper. It is the Irish Daily Mail. Recently, it published the story about €440 being added to the cost of an electricity bill. The same newspaper is not averse to taking on the fashionable aspects of environmentalism. Two days after publishing that front-page story, a banner was on the front page advertising a give-away. Normally, such giveaways involve a film DVD or a music CD. However, on this occasion readers of the Irish Daily Mail were offered two free CFL light bulbs, which the newspaper had regularly castigated during the previous month as being unsafe, unsound and a contributor to the ruination of humanity.

It is important that not only this debate but the ongoing debate we have in the country is properly informed. Mischievousness and politics for the sake of politics is not the order of the day. It is too important an issue to be debated in this manner.

January 30th 2008.

Substance Abuse: Motion

It is important the agreed all-party motion gives equality of importance to the issues of alcohol misuse and illegal drug use. In the past we have tended to portray the situation in regard to illegal drug use as a crisis while the abuse and use of alcohol has been seen as a minor problem and some type of local difficulty. The reality is that alcohol, as a legal drug, contributes to most deaths in this country. It is also a lubricant which breaks down resistance, particularly among young people, and enables them to experiment with other types of illegal listed substances. On these grounds, we should be more honest in admitting that the ultimate gateway drug is alcohol.

The ambivalence towards alcohol in our society has led us down a road where we have failed to take the necessary action, either through legislation or informed public debate, to bring about better standards. If there is to be a value to this debate, this is one of the areas we might explore.

I can cite a particular example of the dangers of alcohol without the added complications of illegal drug use. A number of months ago I became aware of an incident in Cork city centre involving a group of young people who were out one Friday night. They were mostly over 18 years of age but there was a young girl in their company who was 17 years of age and who was drinking without her parents’ permission, like tens of thousands of young people every weekend. The group of four to five young people left a bar and went to some type of fast food outlet to get food but came across another group comprising slightly older young people of 20 years of age or so and mainly male. That group had also consumed large quantities of alcohol and, having been fuelled with alcohol, it was more menacing. There was an exchange of words which led to jostling and punching. People were singled out, including the 17 year old girl who was picked on by two other women who scratched her face beyond recognition, pushed her to the ground and knocked her unconscious. As she was coming to, a hero of modern Ireland kicked her in the face causing her to lose four front teeth. I cite this incident because that young girl was my daughter.

Experiences such as this happens every weekend. That weekend when we went to the accident and emergency department in the local hospital, there were five similar cases — one involved a young woman while four others involved young men of a similar age. Until we can get our heads around the idea of alcohol being one of the biggest menaces in our society, I do not believe we can even come close to tackling the problem of illegal drug use. Even though it is damaging, pernicious and brings about a culture of criminality, I do not believe it causes the kind of damage caused by alcohol use and abuse in our society.
We have made a number of incorrect political choices on this road. The legislation put in place that allows a voluntary code of practice by the drinks industry is bad legislation. From time to time in this House, we rail about the dangers of self-regulation and the need for independent bodies to bring about better standards. Nowhere is this more necessary than in the area of alcohol advertising. I hope that during the term of this Government, that legislation is revisited. We cannot allow people to police themselves in this area. The knock-on from that is how advertising is used and how alcohol use is glamorised and associated with young people and sporting events.

We live in a country where one of our major exports is an alcoholic product. Despite that, there is a lack of honesty in the debate on alcohol. Such an attitude has led to an ambivalence towards illegal drug use here. While many authority figures have railed against the use of cocaine in recent years, it did not seem to be a problem when it was an upper middle class drug of choice, as it has been for the past 15 years. It is only when it began to be used by those with a different socioeconomic status that more questions started to be asked. In spite of all the deaths, it is often glamorised, depending on the status of the exponents involved and their lifestyles. It is the ambivalence that we have towards taking alcohol that has led to this double standard towards drugs such as cocaine. While we allow this ambivalence to continue, it will be very difficult to put in place alternatives that stop the supply and ultimately reduce its use.

We must admit that the taking of any drug — legal or illegal — occurs for a number of reasons. For many participants, it induces a euphoria. This euphoria is compensation for something lacking in their lives. We can rail all we like against the medical dangers involved in taking any drug in any quantity, but while people feel they take something positive out of taking drugs, our job becomes even more difficult.

There have been innovative proposals on how we might get around this. Some people talk about market mechanisms. Others talk about making illegal substances legal. However, the reality is that we have an economy in this country that supports drug use. While it is an illegal black economy, it sustains the lives of far too many people. We do not offer a better social or economic alternative. While millions have been pumped into organisations like the local task forces, I must wonder, as somebody with a youth and community background, to what extent has too much of that money gone to sustain an administration and how little has gone into providing the actual services and facilities needed to provide an alternative to young people. Until we get that balance right, we will be engaged in an exercise of running up the hill backwards.

I hope we face this debate with more honesty in the future. There are signs that the type of knee-jerk reaction that such debates would have caused in the past are no longer as prevalent as they used to be. Public representatives from across the political spectrum are addressing this issue with an intelligence which I believe has been sadly lacking in the past. However, we need to be consistent in addressing the problem, understanding it and coming up with an appropriate response. Ultimately, we must be honest and admit that much of the approaches we have taken to date have failed. Until we reach that level of honesty, the approaches we need to take might be further away than ever.

January 30th 2008.

The 70th Anniversary of the Constitution

It is proper that the upper House takes this opportunity to mark the 70th anniversary of Bunreacht na hÉireann given that it is a creature of that document. We need to use this opportunity to examine in a positive and, in so far as we can, critical way the value of the basic law of the country. It is our second constitution since independence. A close debate took place on whether the Constitution should be adopted and a review of the numbers who were in favour of its ratification demonstrates that it certainly would not have got past a Green Party convention deciding on a party constitution. That said, it was ratified and as a document has served many valuable functions. Strangely, it is one of the oldest written constitutions in Europe. Our nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom, has no written constitution and most of the constitutions of the western European democracies date from after the Second World War. It even has been seen as a source document for constitutional law and was considered during the establishment of the Republic of India. It helped India to shape the manner in which it has become both the most populous democracy in the world and one of the most effective democracies in Asia. On those grounds, the Constitution’s drafters can take a great deal of pride.

It has been presented very much as de Valera’s Constitution and undoubtedly his personality informed it and brought it about. Recent research by Professor Dermot Keogh and Dr. Andrew McCarthy of University College Cork, however, placed four people into the proper historical context who have not been properly acknowledged in respect of drafting of the Constitution. It is important to mention them in this debate. Chief among them was John Hearne, the legal adviser to the then Department of External Affairs. The other drafters included Philip O’Donoghue, who was a legal assistant to the Attorney General, and Maurice Moynihan and Michael McDunphy of the then President of the Executive Council’s department, which was the equivalent of the Department of the Taoiseach. Much of the subsequent debate on the Constitution has focused on the influence of the Catholic Church and of Archbishop John McQuaid in particular. As a creature of its time, however, Bunreacht na hÉireann can be seen to be a highly liberal document and the manner in which it has been interpreted subsequently by the Irish courts system shows that to be the case.

One difficulty with Bunreacht na hÉireann concerns its lack of a large number of specified rights. A number of particular rights are specified while, as Senator Mullen has noted, a large number are implied. Some rights have come about in the strangest of circumstances. For example, the right to bodily integrity came about as a result of a Supreme Court case in the 1960s taken by people who opposed the addition of fluoride to public water supplies. While that was not the point of taking the case, the principle emerged subsequently from the Supreme Court judgment. Furthermore, some specified rights require re-evaluation and reconsideration in respect of their position within modern Ireland. There has been a constant debate on the right to private property and how it has assisted widespread speculation and has not assisted the application of the recommendations of the Kenny report of 1972. Perhaps that is a constitutional matter which should be addressed.

The Irish Constitution lacks a specified section on a Bill of Rights such as can be found in other countries. Some of the arguments that Senator Mullen has just made may run counter to what I am about to argue. There should be an inclusion of specified rights in a future evolution of the Constitution. It is not good enough to depend on international documents such as European or United Nations standards on human rights or even the charter on fundamental rights that might come about as part of the Treaty of Lisbon. Our Constitution should define a list of basic fundamental rights that should be immediately apparent to our citizens. The difficulty when one begins so doing on an individual basis is that one encounters the sort of constitutional difficulties that Ireland has experienced since 1983 when tackling a particular matter. This should be done in a broad sense and not by interfering with the Constitution item by item. Otherwise matters should be left as they stand.

I also seek Bunreacht na hÉireann’s evolution to bring about a more participative democracy. It describes the political institutions of the State and apart from numbers of Members of Dáil Éireann and reducing the voting age to 18, there have been few changes since 1937. The required debate in respect of Seanad reform is highly appropriate in this regard. One of the strange points of genesis of the Seanad’s present form was the adaptation of a political philosophy and political structures that operated in Portugal in the 1930s, which was far from the best example of democracy at the time. The idea of corporatism, what it then represented and what it can represent in 21st century Ireland, must be changed if Members wish to bring about a more active and participative democracy.

Members should consider issues such as the age at which people become politically active, if not the voting age itself. I have often found it strange that since the voting age was reduced, people are allowed to vote for Members of the Dáil and Seanad but are not entitled to be voted on to become Members. Such anomalies, which have been created since the Constitution’s original enactment, probably should be tackled. The Oireachtas has been fortunate to have a highly active committee that has produced eight reports to date on the Constitution, many recommendations of which have been acted on. As a Member of the present Seanad, I serve as a member of the current committee and I wish to see it operate, as is mentioned in the programme for Government, in order that elements of constitutional change that are uncontentious and that bring us toward being a more open, democratic and modern democracy can come about in future. Although the Constitution is a valuable document that should be left intact in so far as is possible, it also is an evolving document and Members’ role as legislators is to engage in a constant debate with one another and with the people and citizens of Ireland to ensure it is the best Constitution possible.