Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We have to work in that regard within the European Union. Again, I do not think there is full realisation in this House yet of the scale of the legislative change coming from the European Union. There are 20 major pieces of legislation because Europe is similarly following this approach.

In that regard there will be a real role for the State. It will be very important we are engaged critically in the planning of how this revolution takes place and in how we deliver the grids - the likes of the transmission grid and the gas network grid are natural State monopolies - in order that we transport, share, shape and deliver this power in a real way. There is a critical role for the State in setting the standards, regulations and rules as to how this industrial revolution evolves. There is a real role for the State in being really invested in the research and the intellectual innovation capabilities of our people to deliver the scale of change needed. There is a real role for our State. Yesterday the Minister, Deputy Harris, updated us in Cabinet that we now have the highest ever number of apprenticeships in place, I think, in this new green construction area. Some 8,000 apprenticeships, I think, have been up and running since the formation of this Government.

There is also a real role for the State in enterprise, with companies like Bord na Móna, Coillte and the ESB being centrally involved in doing this, making the change, putting up turbines and investing in the new offshore and onshore infrastructure. We are doing that at scale and at speed. There is no restriction whatsoever on our State companies in that regard. However, nationalising everything, to my mind, would kill the revolution here and would not deliver the scale, speed and variety of change we need to make.

If I may, I will set out how I see this working because, as I said, it is changing everything. It is changing our transport system, our energy system, our heating system, our industrial system, the very way we use our land and our entire agricultural system. It is very integrated in that each of those are connected to the other. The electrification of transport will change the electricity industry. The electrification of heat and the introduction of heat pumps will change it. There are the changes in the industrial system, with industries starting to use their own power. We are not going back to the ESB of the 1970s, full stop. It would not work because we need every home to be part of the revolution of owning some of the power. We need every business to be able to make the investments for the scale of change we need to make-----

See this speech in context