Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Some €1,500 is not a whole lot in the overall scheme of things. The application of this will be to the 17 full-time operation military installations that we have in Ireland which, as I said earlier, are the naval base, Baldonnel, the barracks, training camps and so on. We want to learn new ways of developing sustainable energy in respect of all these installations. Incremental work has been ongoing. A strategy was launched in 2011. ISO certification was achieved. Solar photovoltaic capacity was developed and electric vehicles were procured. We could do much more. I have been to almost all the barracks, if not all of them, at this stage. There is much building work going on, so we should build energy efficiency into those new buildings all the way. Solar panels are one option in particular. There is much potential here for reducing energy costs but I do not have a specific figure right now. Suffice it to say that other experiences and lessons will come to the fore during these exercises that we can apply to our own installations.