Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegations for their presentations. My first question is to the Department officials. Sinn Féin believes that the national mitigation plan is not fit-for-purpose and lacks specific actions to bring us on the journey on which we need to go over the next two years, 12 years and 32 years up to 2050, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Does the Department have specific plans to immediately revise the plan? According to the EPA, and all the other bodies involved in this area, we will over-shoot our 2020 targets. What specific actions are being planned by the Department to accelerate a reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions?

In regard to the SEAI, leaving aside waste generation, power generation is where the lion's share of our emissions come from. In terms of the move from large-scale generation to micro-generation from renewable sources such as solar, prices in Ireland are the fourth highest in the EU. I brought forward a Bill dealing with micro-generation, which I am sure the witnesses have reviewed. I would be interested in hearing their views on the Bill and on how households and small businesses can become involved in generating electricity, which is common practice in other countries. While some people in the industry would say that the cost of transitioning will be high, as I said, prices here are already the fourth highest in the EU and we have not yet started the journey of transitioning to renewable fuels. Perhaps the witnesses would comment.

Competition in the market is around switching rather than the cost of electricity.

The EPA representatives said in their presentations that greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase. What recent proposals or specific plans are going forward from Government to help to reduce emissions? Specifically, I want to refer the question back to the Department. From what we can see, the national mitigation plan is lacking in specific actions. I argued the point at this committee four or five years ago when we were dealing with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development legislation. The fact that the Act did not have binding sectoral targets was a fatal flaw. What is the EPA view on setting specific sectoral targets for the electricity production, heat and transport industries? Do we need to do that? It is worth pointing out that our biofuel usage has decreased by 8% and in some ways we are going backwards. At this point do we need to set specific sectoral targets to move on? Much of this is coming from the generation of power and we need to start taking action in that area.