Dr. Paul Deane:

I completely agree with and support Mr. O'Donoghue’s suggestions. In many ways, with this energy crisis it is almost a case of hoping for the best and planning for the worst. Hope, however, is not a viable strategy when it comes to energy policy, so we do have to plan for the worst. Again, it means looking internally at our resources and strengths rather than externally at what is happening in Ukraine.

The energy crisis we had in Ireland coming out of the 1970s and into the 1980s was different because we did not have options. We did not know what to do. It was very much about oil. We considered coal and built Moneypoint but the technology required to exploit our renewable resources did not exist at the time. We have that now. We are now going through a similar energy crisis, which has exposed our reliance on fossil fuels, but now we are not hostage to confusion. We know we have technologies to get out of this. It will take time. I reiterate Mr. O'Donoghue's point that while we know what we have to do and why, we have to determine the how and the what quicker. That fundamentally comes back to permitting, licensing and planning. The time it takes to get energy projects off the ground and implemented in Ireland, and, let us be fair, in many other European states, is completely at odds with the urgency of the crisis we are experiencing. It is not about making bad decisions and railroading things through; it is about the ability to make good decisions quickly and deliver the infrastructure we need to get out of this crisis.