Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak on this motion about renewable energy, especially renewable transport energy. Deputy Durkan's motion rightly condemns the failure of the Government to develop adequately alternative energy in this country. I commend Deputy Durkan and Fine Gael for tabling such an important motion. It is repetitive and almost a cliché to state that we are heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels and that there is a necessity to diversify our energy mix for security, environmental and financial reasons.

According to Sustainable Energy Ireland, our import dependency is nearly 90%. Although our total energy demand has soared since the late 1990s, the actual contribution of renewable energy technologies to the overall fuel mix has remained static at a negligible 2.2%. Wind power was responsible for 0.4%, biomass, 1.4%, landfill gas and other biogas, 0.2%, solar, 0.0019% and geothermal, 0.0003% of Ireland's overall fuel mix. When looking at the record of the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, the important thing is to get the right number of zeros behind the decimal point. His achievement in zeros — it stretches to five zeros for biofuel — gives an adequate indication of the failure of the Government in its last year of office.

Next year, a few of us on this side of the House will hopefully get an opportunity to begin a significant and sensible energy policy for this country. People with an interest in energy matters are sick and tired of repeating that Ireland's high import dependency is dangerous and how vulnerable this position leaves us, yet it seems that the message still has not got through to the Government. Examining the measures in place to improve Ireland's energy portfolio, it is clear that the Government is operating in an ad hoc and disjointed way, with a pilot project here and a stopgap measure there, but no vision, drive or proper support in place to achieve the advances in renewable energy that are necessary.

I received an email today, which included a picture of the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, known as The Dear Leader, sitting beside the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, at a UN-sponsored conference for failed broadband countries. I have to admit that the picture may well have been fabricated, but it is very appropriate because——

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