Dáil set to vote on bill banning oil drilling
People Before Profit is hopeful of gaining enough cross-party support to forward its bill aimed at banning oil and gas drilling in Irish waters to select committee level this week.
The party has swapped private members’ time with the Greens, thus allowing it to debate the motion tonight. The Dáil will then, on Thursday, vote on whether the bill should move to select committee stage.
The bill was passed, as a private member’s motion, to Oireachtas committee stage last year. However, it has since ended up in procedural limbo with the environment committee repeatedly failing to vote on progressing it back to the Dáil.
People Before Profit wants the bill to be debated by the Dáil select committee, where it feels it has a better chance of progress.
“The Fine Gael Government, in my view, have thrown the kitchen sink at the People Before Profit Climate Emergency Bill in order to have it stalled and frustrated in a procedural wrangle,” said People Before Profit TD and bill sponsor Bríd Smith.
“They, along with independent senators and Minister [Seán] Canney, seem hell bent on appeasing the fossil-fuel lobby in opposing this bill. This motion is a call for the Dáil to articulate its support for and recognition of the urgent need to tackle the climate crisis. It is the responsibility of all elected representatives to tackle the impending issue of climate change and move the bill to the next stage.”
Ms Smith accused Government of paying “lip service” to the issue of climate change and being “ideologically wed to the fossil-fuel industry”.
