Mr. Denis Duff:

There were quite a number of other questions. Three or four Deputies have very sensibly recommended that we consider all options. It is not enough to say we would like this or that to work. Let us examine the proposals and see if they will work. Suppose we get to the 2020s and find that wave energy is not much further advanced than it is at present. Suppose we find that, as today, gas energy is not clean enough. Suppose we find that hydroelectric energy is fully utilised in this country. Where will we go? There is a long lead time in developing any technology. There are very few technologies and we can see none available at this time. Potentially there is pump storage, such as the offshore Spirit of Ireland schemes that people would have heard about, but there has been very little progress since these were first mooted five years ago. We could have carbon capture and storage plants - coal-fired or gas-fired stations with carbon capture and storage. That is in design, but there is no guarantee it will become an available technology by 2025 because it is not looking very healthy. We do not know what its costs would be.

It is a very difficult issue. We can see no alternative at present. It will be a difficult fight but this is something we should really start to work on now. Let us examine the facts and see what our options are and what we need to do. Do we need to educate ourselves in the first place and then the public? Are we going to go down an entirely different road, take our chances and see what happens? I do not think it would cost too much money to have an independent group looking at the option of an SMR to replace Moneypoint. An energy policy in 2006 considered nuclear energy but summarily dismissed it on the grounds that some people would say the proposal was dubious at best. There is not much cost involved in looking at the options, but there is a lot of cost involved in ignoring them.