Mr. Barry O'Flynn:

Both Denmark and South Korea have resource issues to varying extents. They will both face oil and gas challenges in the long term, as will Ireland which is spending €6 billion a year on energy. One needs to use one's weakness as a strength and this is what these countries have done, as has Israel in the case of water. One needs to use that weakness to develop solutions to meet one's own challenges and then export these solutions. Compared with other countries, Ireland has some of the cheapest and best wind energy resources in the world which are still relatively unexploited. We should be exporting renewable energy at speed to the European market as we can produce renewable energy cheaper than anyone else. Our building stock is very poor by European standards and it can all be upgraded and made cost-effective in order that the energy saving measures will pay for themselves. The public sector building stock, in particular, is probably of most interest to the investment community because there is a creditworthy counter party and it is very clear who will be paying back. That is an entire area that can be developed.

Transport is always a tough nut to crack. Similarly, Denmark has a target to have 100% renewable heat and electricity by 2035, but it has held off on transport until 2050. However, although transport is tough, there is innovation on a worldwide basis. We have certain strengths in that we have one owner of the electricity network; one owner of the distribution network into people's houses. Therefore, for the electrical vehicle market, Ireland can be a test site for deploying this technology without all of the competing issues between competing grid operators. On transport, I would look at the approach taken in Israel, which is to question whether we are doing what is needed from a long-term strategy perspective, that is, to ask what are the options from a procurement perspective other than using oil and diesel. Compressed natural gas is very popular. In Madrid there are 600 buses running on compressed natural gas which is also being used in Verona in Italy. A number of other countries are moving towards using natural gas rather than diesel for public sector transport which is a bridge to using bio-gas.