The Committee on Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht has agreed to invite Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan TD to attend a meeting to spell out and clarify his position on climate change legislation.

Committee Chairman Ciarán Lynch, TD said: "Last week, the Minister announced that he would engage in a process of further study, public consultation and the promotion of carbon emissions mitigation schemes before any climate change legislation is introduced. This would suggest that a climate change bill is unlikely in the near future.

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"The Programme for Government has clearly committed us to bringing in climate change legislation and the Committee will be interested in hearing from the Minister how he sees his recent announcement on climate change policy fitting in with that commitment.

"The Minister’s decision has also been criticised by a number of environmental groups which insist that climate change legislation is necessary to underpin any efforts to cut carbon emissions and meet climate change targets."

The TD said the committee are looking forward to meeting with the Minister so that he can outline in detail his climate change policy, run through his future plans for climate change legislation that would allow Ireland to meeting its 2020 targets and shed light on his timetable for that legislation.

(GK)