Difficult issue is outsourced to assembly say TD sceptics
THE Government will use a Citizens’ Assembly on climate change as a Trojan horse to ‘soften up rural Ireland’ for another series of Green Party attacks, some rural TDs have claimed.
In May, chair of the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, and former Rose of Tralee, Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin opened its six-month programme of work, urging people to play a role in tackling Ireland’s climate and biodiversity emergency, which was declared in 2019.
However, there is growing scepticism among rural Government and opposition TDs that Coalition leaders will use the assembly to ‘outsource’ unpopular political decisions.
Independent TD Carol Nolan told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘For a number of years now, I have shared the well-founded suspicions that have grown up around the true nature and intent of the citizens’ assemblies.
‘In fact, I think it is generally accepted by all but the most ideologically invested that the very reason they have been embraced with such gusto by governments is because they are nothing more
than platforms through which government can outsource difficult issues.’
The Laois-Offaly TD warned: ‘I can only imagine with dread what detached and unattainable obligations and recommendations will emerge from the assembly on biodiversity.’
One veteran Fine Gael TD added: ‘Suspicion is high that this so-called assembly is a Trojan horse set up to soften up rural Ireland for another series of Green Party attacks.’
The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss was set up with much fanfare to deal with ‘the international, European, national, regional and local dimensions to the biodiversity emergency’.
According to the assembly, these include: ‘The threats presented by biodiversity loss and the opportunities to reverse this loss [and] the main drivers of biodiversity loss, their impacts, and the opportunity of addressing these drivers.’
But as tensions between the Greens and its Coalition partners, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, deepen over emissions targets, some TDs fear the assembly was set up with predetermined ends.
Echoing Deputy Nolan’s criticisms, chair of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill told the MoS: ‘I am not a fan of citizens’ assemblies; these are very small groups of people who can, I fear, be steered in certain directions.’
In parliamentary queries to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Ms Nolan sought details on ‘the amounts paid, either on the basis of a contract or as gratuities or expenses to each of the chairpersons, speakers, facilitators, researchers or other persons in respect of the Constitutional Convention in 2012 and all citizens’ assemblies that were held from 2012 to date’.
Responding, Mr Martin insisted all of the assemblies ‘operate independently of the Government, albeit they were assisted by my department, which provided secretariat and other supports’.
However, the amount of expenditure on ‘independent experts’ has risen in recent years.
For the first Convention on the Constitution (2012-2014), the Taoiseach confirmed that ‘experts did not receive payment [and] no payments were made to academic speakers or advocates during the Convention’.
However, the €31,829 cost of research fees for the first citizens’ assembly more than doubled to €70,000 between 2016 and 2018.
And the cost of legal advice and research costs rose again to €104,611 for the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality (2020-2021).
In March, the Taoiseach announced the appointment of Dr Ní Shúilleabháin, and former Dublin football manager Jim Gavin, as the chairs of the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss and on a Directly Elected Mayor respectively.
The Department of An
Taoiseach and the citizens’ assembly did not respond to queries from the MoS on the process, criteria and qualifications used in the appointments or on whether the process was a competitive one.