Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Lanesboro peat station and the peat station in the midlands both operate with new technology which is highly efficient. Security of supply is obviously enormously important. The Finns, who are on top of the list in all these issues, use peat because of their resources. If the Deputy believes we should not be doing that, he has the wrong end of it. We have a high reliance on fossil fuels for power generation. Last week I spelt out what we are doing in the agricultural sector and cement production. We also have a high level of fuel purchases for use outside the State. It is estimated that 10% of petrol and 25% of diesel sold in this country was consumed outside the State. Those figures, of course, are put in as 18% of total emissions from road transport.

On the question of things being done now, we have set a steeply ambitious target to deliver one third of electricity from renewable sources of energy. We have maximum use of new technologies for co-generation of power stations. We have biomass and planning for the use of carbon capture and clean coal generation, all of which is happening now. Creating opportunity for farmers in bio-fuel production, creating a new bio-fuel industry in the country, introducing a minimum requirement for the use of bio-fuels in State-owned and public transport vehicles, starting with Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann, both of which have been instructed to move all their existing fleet to 5% biodiesel blend——

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