Submissions

In order to give this topic due consideration, the Assembly met over two weekends to consider it; 30th September – 1st October 2017 and 4th/5th November 2017. A second weekend was added to allow the Members to consider this important issue more fully to enhance the discussion and the eventual recommendations which emerged.

Submissions were invited across the full spectrum of issues in relation to Climate Change, but in particular the Assembly sought to hear views on Ireland’s energy, transport and agriculture sectors.

In addition, the Assembly dovetailed the work of the Assembly with work being undertaken by the advisory group on the National Dialogue on Climate Change. That group will be considering how the State can properly engage the wider public on the issue of climate change and as such submissions addressing this aspect were also welcome. It is hoped that aligning the Citizens’ Assembly with the National Dialogue will add to the national discourse on climate change and would ultimately be of benefit to the Members as they considered this issue.

List of useful documents shared with the members

• Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet on Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change
• The National Mitigation Plan (Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, July 2017)
• National Policy Position on Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Department of Environment, Community and Local Government, April 2014)
• Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015
• Climate Change Advisory Council – Periodic Review Report 2017
• Climate Change Advisory Council – First Report
• The European Commission 2030 Climate and Energy Framework
• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
• The Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2015)
• Draft National Adaptation Framework-September 2017 (Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, September 2017)
• Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013
• Environmental Protection Agency: State of the Environment Report, 2016

Members of the public, representative groups and citizen organisations were urged to make a submission to the Assembly.

The Chairperson of the Assembly, the Honourable Mary Laffoy said “The Assembly has been tasked with considering some of the most complex topics facing Irish society and on this occasion, I think it is fair to say we will be looking at something that has posed a challenge for societies right across the world. Climate change, specifically one country or another’s capacity to lead or to step back from the issue, is a global talking point right now therefore it is timely for us to be participating in this discussion.”

In total, the Assembly received 1,205 submissions. Full details on the breakdown of these submissions are provided below.

Of the 1,205 submissions received, 1,180 were received online and 25 were received by post.

Of these, 1,185 have been published on the Assembly’s website. In total 20 were not published. Of those submissions received and not published the reasons were as follows:

• 1 submission was withdrawn by the author;
• 5 submissions were not relevant to the topic;
• 14 submissions were duplicates.*

(*Where an exact submission was made more than once by the same individual this was only published once. In many cases this happened because the individual made the same submissions in multiple formats, i.e. by post, on line and by email)

The submissions play a key role in helping the secretariat and the Expert Advisory Group develop the work programme on the topic and can ultimately shape the recommendations being made by the Members to the Houses of Oireachtas. All submissions are published on the Assembly’s website, and a signpost document was prepared for the Members of the Assembly.

This Signpost Document aims to identify, in order of popularity, the key issues/topics/themes which presented in the submissions. The full text of the 1,185 published submissions is
available on the Assembly website (www.citizensassembly.ie). The Assembly Secretariat has grouped them into broad thematic areas and has attempted to present a selection of the perspectives which were received.

View the signpost document to read a summary of the submissions received. 

View the Submissions received from NGOs, representative groups, advocacy groups, political parties, commercial entities and academics

Note: This list was originally circulated to members in advance of the Citizens’ Assembly’s first meeting on Climate Change in September 2017. The list has since been updated to include additional organisations which were inadvertently omitted from the original list. For clarity, these have been marked with an asterisk.