Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a couple of comments as well as ask some questions. The departmental officials did not elaborate sufficiently on the potential cost of missing the targets. I have heard a number of people mention 2020 but then say that we are really moving towards 2030. It seems that if we do not achieve the 2020 target, we face significant fines that we will carry into the future. It is bit like sitting the junior certificate examination and taking the view that it does not really matter because the leaving certificate examination is the important one. If a student cannot get his or her act together in terms of a study plan for the junior certificate examination, then he or she probably will not have it in place for the leaving certificate examination.

As a politician who looks to the electoral cycle, I am conscious that when we stand back from that cycle, we often bemoan our failure to get things right that have been going on for ten, 15 or 20 years. I am concerned that the electoral cycle is a factor when this is being looked at from a departmental and a political perspective. The concern is that because 2030 is a long way off, successive Ministers have decided that this is not something they need to sort out. I suspect someone may have taken that view a little bit further back. Now that we are heading into this particular cycle, people have to address it.

I ask the witnesses to comment on the potential cost. How might that money be better deployed in the medium term? Mr. Gannon has said that if we address the solar aspect of this matter, in addition to some of the onshore wind aspect, we could improve our output and increase our return within a short period. This would be of some benefit and would lead to some money being saved. Any short-term investment that prevents us having to pay fines is a better form of investment.

I am conscious that we are looking principally at electricity generation, where the laggards or blackguards - I am not talking about anyone individually - are the transport and heat sectors. As a committee, maybe we should be exercising most of our functions in addressing the areas of greatest concern. Everybody here has a good news story to tell. Perhaps we are looking for a little bit more. We are trying to squeeze the last couple of per cent out of a sector that has performed exceptionally well. Maybe the committee should reflect on how we might address that in the future.

I was interested in Mr. Sharkey's point because I know a little bit about it. I have met the chairman of the Micro Renewable Energy Federation. I have read what Mr. Sharkey and his colleagues have produced to date. It is more important to focus on getting citizens to buy into this than it is to focus on what is deliverable against our targets. The electric car is a case in point. The witnesses are part of a big industry that is often largely at a remove from consumers. When a consumer plugs in the kettle and it works, he or she generally does not know too much about how that happens. The kettle boils. The television comes on. It is there. That is big industry. That is really important. That is where we need to focus. If we want citizens to change their behaviour right across the environmental arena, we need to get that right.

Mr. Sharkey has brought to the table an opportunity for citizens to see short-term benefits from their decision to buy into the protection of the environment. It is not necessarily going to change how we will view electricity in 2050, but it will get citizens to change their behaviour in an array of ways. I know people who have adapted, moved to electric vehicles and changed the way they live their lives in many other respects. They are focusing on the environment and on how they treat it. For that reason, the initiatives discussed by the people in the Micro Renewable Energy Federation and by Mr. Sharkey have the capacity to bring people with them. They also have the capacity to address some of the issues that have been discussed by the witnesses, including those from the onshore wind sector. It has been suggested that 3% or 4% of people are against this. As people buy into the protection of our environment in a meaningful way, they must see themselves having a role in it. For many people, electricity and public transport are behind the scenes, whereas the decisions they make in their own lives have real potential. I think we need to try to support such initiatives, even if they might not result in a massive dial change in respect of our targets in the short term.

I have a real concern about the RESS and the notion of taking a technology-agnostic approach to the auctions because I believe it equates to hoping some other country will resolve our problem for us. We need to get some level of activity in the whole solar area at an early stage. Perhaps it is not early any more. We need to develop that technology ourselves. We are behind the curve in this regard. We need to catch up. That is why I think the technology-agnostic approach to the auctions is not in our best interests in the long term. It does not provide for diversity. I do not mean to be negative with regard to onshore wind in any way. We need to be looking at offshore wind in this context as well. The witnesses might not be aware that before today's meeting of the joint committee, we decided to invite representatives of other groups to come before us, including those involved in the offshore wind sector, which is an area of untapped potential. People have told me we are ten years away from putting this in place, but that should not be the case given the resource we have. I know there is a cost associated with it from the point of view of the Department. We need to address it.

There are probably some other points I intended to make. I have written so many notes for myself that I am starting to get a bit confused. I am sure the Chairman is delighted that I am concluding.