The Government would be seriously embarrassed by a disgraceful proposal to "gag" the head of a body charged with promoting environmentally friendly energy use, Mr Joe O'Toole (Ind) forecast.
He criticised a provision in the Sustainable Energy Bill to prohibit the chief executive of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland from questioning Government policy.
The Bill provides that when required, the chief executive should give evidence to a committee of the Dail on matters pertaining to the expenditure of the authority. However it adds that in the performance of duties of this nature, the chief executive "shall not question or express an opinion" on the merits of any Government or ministerial policy.
That was the kind of stuff one would expect to find in a Third World dictatorship, said Mr O'Toole. In his 14 years in the House he had never expected to see words like this in legislation.
Noting that the Authority was obliged to promote and assist the minimising of the impact on the environment of the production, supply and use of energy, Mr O'Toole said he would be writing to both leaders of the Government.
He would inquire if they were aware of this provision which effectively placed a gag on the very people expected to lead on this important issue.
"They are supposed to sit there and watch the Government make mistakes and not be able to say a word about it. They can't even make a private observation on it."
He did not think this aspect of the legislation, which was seriously out of kilter with the way public business was done nowadays, would survive debate in the Oireachtas. If it did, public representatives would go down in his estimation. Introducing the Bill, which passed the Second Stage, the Minister of State for Public Enterprise, Mr Joe Jacob, said that under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, this country had agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 13 per cent above 1990 levels.
Our emissions were now over 20 per cent above these levels. The latest ESRI forecast suggested a rise of 27 per cent above 1990 by 2010 if business continued as usual. Energy-related CO 2 emissions accounted for 55 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and were forecast to increase to 63 per cent in nine years if measures to abate them were not devised.
Mr David Norris (Ind) condemned the stance taken by the US administration on Kyoto. The United States, with 4 per cent of the world's population, contributed 25 per cent to global emissions and this was now going to mushroom as a result of this squalid commercial deal.
He was glad to see that groups in Ireland were calling for a boycott of US oil companies.
"It's only a flea bite, but believe you me, as somebody who was once bitten by a flea, it can be very irritating. So I think this little green flea should give the Americans a good bite in terms of a possible boycott of American-based oil companies."