James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I listened to some of the contributions. I apologise for being late. I had another commitment coming into the Chamber. I never expected to be speaking in this Chamber - certainly not so soon. I know some of our colleagues on the committee, such as Senator Leyden, have had esteemed careers in the lower House before progressing to the Upper House and that Deputy Dooley did this in reverse. I am sure many Members have made that journey. I think Senator O'Reilly has as well. There is a lot of movement. I will not predict the future for myself, but it is a pleasure to be here in such august surroundings. The Chamber looks very well in its new home.

Back on topic, I want to inquire into and express a few opinions on the Government's energy policy and the whole energy spectrum. I listened with interest to Deputy Smith's comments and I certainly sympathise with much of what she said. The wind industry in particular is controversial, and I know the Minister knows this from his own constituency no less than nationally, but I hope there is a sense of consensus emerging. We struggle with the reality that the communities affected closest to wind turbines in particular struggle. I have seen this at first hand and do not think the wind developers and some of their practices we have seen can be condoned in any shape or form. They have come in and rode roughshod over local communities, with a complete lack of consultation, driven neighbour against neighbour and been responsible for all sorts of sharp practices. There was a suggestion that the main wind farm in my constituency of Kildare north, bordering into Meath - I serve Meath as well - was an attempt to sterilise the entire two counties because it was such a widespread farm and was not necessarily a strategic imperative in terms of energy production but was perhaps an attempt to get in there and wipe it out before someone else could do it. There were all kinds of misdemeanours at play there. I hope we are seeing a consensus emerge on the committee and more widely that renewable energy in different forms is the way to go. I think the technology of offshore wind is becoming a little more affordable and that solar is beginning to emerge and seems to be less controversial with local communities - so far anyway. Time will tell. We have heard talk of biomass, although I am not sure it is viable, considering the raw product required to go into it. Then there is wave energy, in respect of which I understand there are difficulties in terms of technology. However, as technology progresses, I hope we can make that journey.

We have seen the likes of Portugal, Spain and some of the other Mediterranean countries, which of course enjoy greater access to solar energy than we do, make great strides and, I think, go energy-negative in terms of pricing a few times. Some of them have run out of renewables for a few days at a time, which is quite unprecedented and very welcome. Deputy Smith mentioned Germany and other countries and how they operate. When a few of us from this committee travelled to the renewable energy conference about a year ago in Copenhagen, that was one of the topics we discussed with parliamentarians from around Europe. We sometimes think Ireland is unique, our situation is very different and we are against all these things when everyone else is for them, but in fact when we discussed the matter with other members of parliament from around the EU, we discovered that it is almost the same everywhere and that no community welcomes a renewable energy project on its doorstep, whether it is central Europe, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean or, indeed, the midlands in Ireland.

However, what they have done right and what seems to enjoy greater appeal or greater acceptance is where there is a far greater degree of local involvement, participation and dividend for wind projects. For example, along the Scandinavian coastline, where there are little self-sustaining communities, there is a small wind farm that has the support and encouragement of the local community and there is a direct dividend in terms of both share options or share ownership schemes and energy credits. Therefore, if one lives near the wind farm and is involved in its production or involved in it in some other way or impacted in some way, one enjoys a credit on one's energy prices or even a share certificate which can be cashed in sometime or passed on to one's estate if one wishes to do so. There may be some lessons to be learned from that.

I looked at the estimates and the figures. I am concerned about the implications. The whole difficulty with this is that we are trying to toe a fine line between being sympathetic to local concerns and yet meeting our climate change targets. I do not have the date of the meeting, but in a previous committee hearing we heard from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, which suggested that for each percentage point below 16% we fell in respect of our overall target, we would be fined in the region of between €100 million to €150 million. Therefore, if we fell short by one percentage point, we could be looking at a €150 million fine, and if we were down by ten percentage points we could be looking at a €1.5 billion fine. I ask the Minister, or perhaps his officials, whether he has any view at this stage or, even better, any figures as to how we are looking for our 2021 targets. Are we potentially looking at fines in excess of €1 billion and, if so, what might they be or where exactly are we positioned in that space?