Returning with a look of what was said that the climate change debate hosted by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, Friends of the Earth and the DCU Climate Society, Pippa Hackett of the Green Party said her party was the only party what has climate action at its core.

"Unfortunately, we were ignored for far too long, and we've seen how far behind we are some of our European counterparts, but the dial is turning, and that's because the Greens have been in government for the past four and a half years."

Fine Gael's Hildegarde Naughton said her party has been "absolutely committed and will continue to be committed to addressing climate action".

She said the outgoing government has "made huge progress in relation to reducing emissions."

"We saw last year emissions reduced by almost 7% but absolutely we need to do more."

Sinn Féin's Darren O'Rourke said climate and climate action are a "major priority" for the party and he said: "It's a matter of insisting that the transition is just and fair."

He said there needs to be "massive investment in public transport" and that the party would also invest €2.5 billion in a renewable investment fund.

Fianna Fáil's Thomas Byrne said from his party's point of view, climate change is "an existential threat to the world, to our existence" and he said in opposition and in government Fianna Fáil "has acted on that."

There are "many things that we can do that are of practical benefit to people that deal with that existential threat and that work for people and work for the country," he said.

The Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik said "urgent and ambitious action" is required to achieve a just transition on the challenges facing the climate.

Ms Bacik said her party would insist on a "retrofitting revolution" as part of reaching the emissions reduction targets.

She said it would ensure that households are supported "in bringing about, not just emissions reductions, but reductions in energy costs."

Paul Murphy from People Before Profit said people need to be told the truth about climate change and the targets.

He said the truth is "we're not leading on climate" and he said the "truth is everything isn't going to be okay".

"We're not going to get there. The truth is we're heading for absolute catastrophe, and we're going to miss by a country mile our legally binding targets, which are in themselves inadequate."

Jennifer Whitmore of the Social Democrats said one of the party's priorities is a moratorium on the building of data centres.

She said there has been no controls on data centres put in place and she said "there is no strategy, no holistic, overall government strategy that deals with data centres".

"I'm not saying we don't need data centres, because we do, but do we need them using 30% of our electricity by 2030? Are we going to be able to maintain that? Are we going to have the renewable energies in place? And I don't think we have. There are warning signals that that will not be the case."