David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

I am very happy to contribute briefly to the debate on this motion, the first part of which calls on the Dáil to condemn the Government for its failure to act "in a meaningful way" on the alternative energy agenda.

The overall aim of Sustainable Development: A Strategy for Ireland, which was published in 1997, was "to ensure that the economy and society in Ireland can develop to their full potential within a well protected environment, without compromising the quality of that environment, and with responsibility towards present and future generations and the wider international community". It is clear that in April 1997, the then Government saw this entire area as a major priority. In April 1998, the new Department of Public Enterprise placed a more pronounced emphasis on the environment in energy policy, leading to a greater focus on energy efficiency. In 1996, the Government launched a programme, Renewable Energy — A Strategy for the Future, to promote the generation of energy from renewable energy sources. The Government of ten years ago saw this issue as a major priority.

There was great excitement in 1999 when the Green Paper on Sustainable Energy was published. I was involved in the debate on the Green Paper at that time from the Opposition benches. I was quite interested in the publication and I hoped a great deal would come from it. A number of Deputies went to Gotland in Sweden around that time to examine what had been done there. We were very impressed with the progress made and we hoped that similar progress would be made here. That was not to be the case, unfortunately.

The renewable energy development group established in May 2004 has published All-Island Energy Market, which sets out the group's vision for the renewable energy sector in the years to 2020. It is clear that many reports and documents have been produced over many years, but not much has happened on the ground. I have examined some of the submissions made by many people as part of the consultation process that preceded the publication of the 2020 vision document. For example, an independent external observer from the University of Limerick said it was "heartening to see the very recent but somewhat belated interest being expressed by Government Ministers and their agencies in renewable energy". He went on to point out:

The changes in EU farm policy particularly the single farm payment scheme offer opportunity to the agricultural sector in Ireland to become significant providers of primary energy through the provision of land for wind farms or through the use of arable land to grow biomass crops. These crops and agricultural residues can have an impact on transport energy and the energy required for production of electricity. The transport sector has been recognised recently with the decision to alleviate the duty payment on seven million litres of biodiesel and rapeseed oil.

As Deputy Connaughton said, the Government did not start to appreciate the importance of this area until very recently. The submission made by the representative of the University of Limerick also stated:

Currently although farmers might grow these crops there are neither large scale facilities for combustion nor sufficient small scale CHP plants available. There is recognition at EU level that if penetration of bioelectricity is to grow that it will be through co-combustion in existing solid fossil fuel facilities.

According to the man in question, "the use of biomass in these facilities would offer the additional benefit of extending the lifetime of the peat resource." That is an issue that has been debated today. It is certain that the use of renewable energy sources has huge potential. We need to grasp those possibilities.

I note that the Environmental Protection Agency has called for cross-compliance in the agricultural sector. It has argued that "the Single Farm Payment may afford considerable opportunities to develop energy crops, however, this is unlikely to occur unless agricultural and energy policies are harmonised". That is exactly what Fine Gael has been saying in its policy document. There is a need for cross-departmental action on this. It is estimated that the agricultural sector will spend up to €1 billion on the construction of additional animal slurry storage capacity. The EPA has mentioned the potential of such development in terms of the production of energy. The EPA maintains that the replacement of existing solid fuel-fired plants with biofuels would contribute to the achievement of this country's Kyoto targets, which is an issue that has been mentioned by other speakers.

When I examined where we stand in respect of this issue compared with other EU member states, I came across an EU fact sheet from September 2005. It showed that Sweden, Finland, Austria and Portugal got a far greater proportion of their energy from renewable sources than the other member states. If I understand the figures correctly, by 2002 Austria had achieved 68% of its national renewable energy targets, Denmark had achieved 20%, Finland had achieved 24%, Italy had achieved 16%, Portugal had achieved 21% and Ireland had achieved just 5%. We have a long way to go by comparison to our EU counterparts. I welcome some of the things the Government is doing, but it needs to do much more. It needs to spend more on research, for example.

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