Ms Julie O'Neill:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today's meeting. I welcome this opportunity. I will begin by summarising my own career and explaining why I applied for membership of the board of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. I will then set out my vision and my priorities for the authority. I have circulated a slightly longer version of this statement. I will summarise it slightly to stay within a five-minute timeframe. I spent the first 37 years of my career as a civil servant. I joined the Civil Service straight from school in 1972. I was very privileged to have a wide and varied public service career. This gave me the opportunity to work with various Ministers and political parties and to contribute to strategic policy development and its implementation across eight Departments during a period of great change in Ireland's economy and society. I hold a bachelor's degree in commerce from UCD and a master's degree in policy analysis from Trinity College. I am a member of the Institute of Directors. I have recently been designated as a certified bank director by the Institute of Banking, following my completion of its corporate governance programme.

In October 2001, I was appointed Secretary General of the then Department of Marine and Natural Resources. In June 2002, following a change of Government, I was reassigned to the newly formed Department of Transport. I left the Civil Service on completion of my term of office as Secretary General in 2009. Since then, I have undertaken some strategic management consultancy work. In more recent years, I have concentrated primarily on a limited number of non-executive board appointments where I believe I can make a contribution. During my time as Secretary General, I developed and have since maintained a keen interest in the potential of sustainable energy to contribute to meeting the economic, social and environmental challenges and opportunities faced by Ireland. I was privileged to attend Cabinet committee meetings on infrastructure and climate change. This exposed me to the breadth of policy perspectives and the challenge of finding synergies between renewable energy targets and other policy goals. While I worked in the Department of Transport, I oversaw the preparation of Smarter Travel, which is a challenging long-term strategy for implementing sustainable transport policy. At that time, it was the first such policy for Ireland.

In 2011, I answered an advertisement placed by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and asked to be considered for just one board under its auspices - the board of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. I served on the board for three years until September 2014. This allowed me to learn more about optimising energy efficiency and renewable energy and to contribute to the development of policy, strategy and governance at the authority. I currently serve on two other boards. I was appointed as a non-executive director of Ryanair in December 2012 and of Permanent TSB in January 2014. I developed extensive corporate governance experience in the public and private sectors through my role as Secretary General, in which I had responsibility for the oversight of 37 State agencies, and more recently through my non-executive director roles. Earlier this year, I applied to stateboards.ieto be considered for re-appointment to the board of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. I indicated my willingness to serve as chairperson of the authority. If my appointment as chair is confirmed, I will adopt a pragmatic approach to the role. I will be mindful of the wider challenges and trends that are facing Ireland's economy and society, of which sustainable energy is just one. I am ready to draw on the specialist expertise within the authority and around the board table and to act as a critical friend to the organisation, checking and challenging it as it moves forward.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland is the national authority for sustainable energy. Its legislative mission is to promote and assist the development and deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Sustainable energy offers a great opportunity for Ireland, which is highly dependent on imported fossil fuels that are expensive and polluting. The more we reduce energy waste and the more we exploit our own rich and clean indigenous energy resources, the greater the social and employment benefits to the people of Ireland. A global transition is under way to eliminate the unsustainable aspects of our energy systems, most notably the huge environmental risk posed by climate change. This creates an important enterprise opportunity. As we move to address our own energy challenges, solutions developed by Irish companies can be exported to other states that are facing the same imperatives. I have set out in my written statement some of the detail of the significant progress Ireland has made in recent years. The authority has played an important role in this progress.

In the past six years, the authority has delivered 300,000 upgraded homes via Government grant support. Some 550,000 homes now have building energy ratings. Over 3,000 businesses have been supported in reducing their energy costs. Energy expenditure by the public sector has been reduced by €70 million per annum through efficiency improvements. More than 16,000 people are now employed in the sustainable energy sector in Ireland. This country's annual energy bill is €700 million lower than it would be without recent progress on energy efficiency. Our imports of fossil fuels are over €400 million lower every year due to our local clean energy resources. This is just the beginning of a long journey. The Minister has signalled Ireland's policy intent to see the energy system largely decarbonised by 2050. This will require decisive action across a range of sectors and will result in substantial benefits to the economy and society.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland will play a significant leadership role and will be a catalyst for change in ensuring progress is made with the sustainable energy agenda. The Minister intends to publish a new White Paper on energy policy later this year. The authority will follow this with a new strategic plan, demonstrating how it will act to support the delivery of national policy goals in sustainable energy. I would like to say a few words about governance. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland is fully compliant with the Government's code of practice for the governance of State bodies. In 2011, it became the first organisation in Europe to achieve certification under Swift 3000, which is an independent assessment of corporate governance frameworks in organisations. The authority has maintained its certification status in subsequent reviews. Members may be aware that the maintenance of this standard, which was recommended by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his 2009 annual report, provides assurance that the authority operates to the highest international standards.

My personal objectives for the immediate future are to work with the new board to ensure we operate in the most efficient way possible, provide strong guidance to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and monitor the activities and effectiveness of the organisation. We will immediately move to complete our new strategic plan to support the Government’s energy policy goals. I want to ensure the board acts on a fully informed basis, makes its decisions in good faith and is recognised as a well run, efficient and strategic State body.

I will conclude on a personal note. The former President, Mary Robinson, spoke about her fears about the kind of world her grandchildren would inherit in 2050 if we failed to tackle climate change. In the past two years, I have been blessed with a grandson born in China and a granddaughter in Australia. I think often about how we are the generation that will take the decisions that will impact on their world, for better or worse, and how our collective decisions will have global reach. I have seen at first hand the impact of climate change on China, for instance, and how that vast country is trying to grapple with its implications. The arrival of my own grandchildren has re-energised my focus on playing my own modest part in eliminating the unsustainabilities in the world's energy systems. I make this point because I believe it is possible to be a pragmatist, while at the same time being passionate about addressing the challenges of sustainable development. There are many things in the world that divide us but in this area, while there will inevitably be differences on the detail of policies to be pursued, we all share a desire to leave the world in a better state for the next generations.

I thank the Chair for the invitation and I will be pleased to answer any questions members may have.