Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his staff. I am a little disappointed because I would have imagined that the management summary of the report would at this stage be of printer’s copy standard, with photographs selected. I believed we would be receiving a copy of the management summary and I am a little disappointed we do not have it. Be that as it may, I wish to talk in the first instance about climate change. The Minister and I accept the scientific data that it poses a really serious problem, and we accept the evidence suggesting we must keep within 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. I believe we accept the premise that 80% of known fossil fuel resources already discovered will have to remain in the ground or this planet will have a serious problem. Why are we still talking about fracking? Why are Ireland and other countries still exploring new sources of oil and gas if we can use but a fraction of what is already accessible?

I hope community energy projects will be included in the White Paper. I would like to see a lot of development in this area over the next five to ten years. It is an area that the public will very much buy into because they will see a direct benefit to themselves. For community initiatives to be developed, there needs to be a feed-in tariff for solar energy. Will the White Paper contain anything on that? Will a feed-in tariff for microgeneration be mentioned in the White Paper? The voluntary scheme was scrapped last year. Any individual renewable energy microgenerator must give away excess electricity to the grid for free. Could, and should, community developments be included in the renewable heat incentive because the consultation draft is only for industrial projects?

Will there be a discussion on how we might facilitate a direct route for communities to access the national grid? This project will be buried if people have to wait for ten years or more and risk the costs and uncertainty of investing in those projects. Finally, will we consider requiring developers to give communities and individuals an opportunity to have ownership of part of developer-led projects? In Denmark, for example, the legislation requires that 20% of wind projects are owned by the communities or by individuals. That would mean some of the economic returns would go directly back into the communities that host the developments. To what extent will that be covered in the White Paper?

I do not know what to say about the north-south interconnector. I have a fear about this project. So much has been spent on the design and getting it through the planning process to date that I believe the fear of the waste of money and the potential for further delay will drive a decision rather than what is the best thing to do. One thing we learned from the Grid Link project was that delay was our friend. It enabled us to assess more accurately the demand requirements over the next decade at least and allowed us to arrive at a much more cost-effective solution. I realise there is a greater urgency about the north-south interconnector but if the factors that are being considered at present are cost and timeliness, it must be taken into account that there will be far more cost and infinitely more delay unless the solution that is installed enjoys considerable support in the host community. That is a very big risk with this project.

Will the report discuss-----