Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There are so many contradictions in what the Minister has said that I do not know where to start but I will start with where he finished. He will not encourage communities to produce their energy needs if he does not allow them access to the grid and remove the necessary burden of financial resources that they need in order to compete with the big players. It is just not fair. We are a small island with lots of wind, solar and wave potential and we need to urgently move away from our reliance on fossil fuels. The Minister contradicted himself by saying that we need connectivity with other countries through gas, etc. I believe that we need to move away from that model and into sustainability. The way we can do that is by encouraging local, community-based production of power and we can only do that through legislation. If the Government does not legislate for this, of course, communities will say, "Why bother? The Minister does not give a damn and he is waiting to see what Europe does." He must make decisions about this country not the entire European Union or the bit of it that has just "Brexited". That is the problem with his approach. He is saying leave the communities and leave the co-ops that exist on the Aran Islands out of the legislation and that he will think about them and talk to them separately. That is not good enough. They need legal access to the grid that does not force them to compete with the big players on the market. That is why I tabled my amendment.