Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and share his reticence. I am not a member of the committee so I will not be deliberating on this. However, Deputy Lowry will do so. I would like to make a couple of points. I share the concerns of the Chair. We need to remember that Ireland is not joined to the European Continent. We are divorced now to all intents and purposes from the UK. The climate policy that is adopted will not impact on European states as it will impact on us. The simple fact Ireland has to access gas through converters, for example, shows we do not have control of our energy supply.

I have major concerns about the level of joined-up thinking between the need for commercial delivery and the Department's wish to adopt European directives. We are way behind in achieving our potential to roll out the wind energy aspirations we have. We are well behind in terms of alternative fuels development in this country. We will be importing all of this stuff and we will be subject to all the other costs coming from the EU. We may not get the climate advantage. The Chair is right to flag this issue.

The Department needs to be cognisant of what we are signing up for. While we have passed our climate agenda and are committed to making these reductions, we cannot cut our own throats to be the best in class. At the end of the day, we are a very small emitter globally of carbon and greenhouse gases, although our emissions per capitaare high. We need to reflect Ireland's position. The Chair is taking the right point of view. More information is needed. What I would like to see, as Mr. Burke outlined at his symposium with many different actors coming in, is a high level of private engagement on these issues. These are the people who will tell us straight off the bat where the real problems are. I mean no disrespect to the Department and I know it is speaking to various people. Someone who tries to put together a commercial venture will very quickly find out what the difficulties are and, more important, the significant costs that all of this will impose on Ireland. We are not taking that into account.