Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending today. It is beneficial we are having this discussion and that there will be a debate in the Dáil tomorrow. It is important the public get to see there are not only environmental costs to us not meeting our targets but economic and social costs. I note the Minister said this money will be going to Estonia and Denmark and will be contributing to them investing in their public infrastructure in renewables. My preference would have been that it stayed in Ireland and would have been invested in contributing to us meeting our targets. That would have been a much better use of the money. The sum of €50 million is a considerable amount of money to be transferring overseas. It could have paid for 5,000 solar panels on schools or retrofitted 2,500 homes. It is not an insignificant amount of money but it is good we are having this debate.

I have some specific questions on the cost of the transfer. If time permits, I also have some broader questions and if I could proceed that way, it would be good. The statistical transfer is directed to two countries. The transfer to Estonia is costing €15 per MW hour and the transfer to Denmark is costing €12.5 per MW hour. There is quite a differential between the two. One terawatt hour of energy to Denmark is costing €12.5 million and for Estonia it is costing €37.5 million.

I had a look back and the agreement between the Netherlands and Denmark was also €12.50 per megawatt hour, and similarly with Luxembourg and Lithuania. Why are we paying Estonia €15 per megawatt hour, as opposed to €12.50, which seems to be the going rate?