Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have got as far as people accepting the concept of "reduce, reuse, recycle". That took a long time to enter people's consciousness and the use of primary schools to get the message across was effective. We are now moving to a different level in having to focus on the 2020 targets, the level of energy to be sourced from renewables and how we will achieve this. The general public needs to be informed that globally - never mind here - we have moved away from the use of fossil fuels. How will we have an energy source to enable us to turn on the switch that we are so used to turning on, be it for cooking or heating? There needs to be a big discussion in order that people will engage. One can read specialised periodicals and watch the odd television programme, but at Government level there is a need for a programme of citizen engagement, starting at primary school level. I hope that is something that will come from this.