Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy Neville, if he turns up. If he does not, I will speak for 20 minutes. I am happy to have an opportunity to speak in this debate and I am sorry that there are not more people and journalists watching it, although hopefully some of them are watching on their monitors.

The previous speaker was passionate about this issue which is central to his party. The rise in support for his party in Ireland, and for similar parties across Europe, shows that people are engaging with the issue. In typical fashion, Fianna Fáil is also pretending to engage with it as a general election approaches. I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in what is potentially the final week of this Dáil on the issue of Ireland's responsibilities in respect of greenhouse gas emissions and its failure to live up to commitments entered into in this regard.

The failure of this country to develop a renewable energy and alternative fuel industry is perhaps the greatest missed opportunity of the past five years. This could have a positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions and while it would not solve the problem, it would be a step in the right direction. Not only had we the capacity, the opportunity and the natural resources available to do so, we also had the finance to kick-start a new way of thinking through direct support and tax incentives which would have forced people to think in a different way about energy and fuel use. To make matters worse, this is also a blatant breach of commitments into which the Government entered with the European Union and the United Nations, for which taxpayers must pay directly.

On 31 May 2002, all 15 then member states of the European Union deposited the relevant ratification paperwork relating to the Kyoto Protocol of a few years previous with the United Nations. The EU was then producing approximately 22% of global greenhouse gas emissions. We agreed to an 8% cut in emissions on average across the EU from the base year, 1990, levels. Since then, the European Commission has tried to be more ambitious and has announced an intention to try to cut emissions across the EU by another 20% before 2020.

Ireland's commitment under the EU agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions was to limit the increases to 13% above 1990 levels. We hear guff from Government spokespersons that because the economy grew so quickly we could not play our part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, despite the commitment we gave. The truth is that we were an exception. While most countries radically reduced greenhouse gas emissions, we were allowed to increase our emissions from the base year, which takes into account economic growth and rapid development over that time.

It is not an excuse to say that because our economy was growing between 7% and 10% a year for a decade we could not possibly cope with the commitments we made in different times. They were not such different times when we made that commitment and we got a good deal, but we have not followed through on that commitment and made the tough and sometimes unpopular decisions needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In hindsight, they would have been popular decisions when people understood why there were being made.

We emit approximately 26% above 1990 levels so we have already doubled our exceptional increase limit. We should have met the EU target only from 2008 on. We must significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions just to meet our original target, which was an increase on 1990 levels. This is an appalling failure over a relatively short time.

We have had the capacity to deliver on the commitments we made and could have done so if we had taken action some years ago. Over the past five years, we should have set specific targets in various sectors, for example, transport. Why have we not promoted the idea of blending ethanol with petrol to try to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions coming from each car? Even in the United States, which environmental activists around the world criticise for not reducing greenhouse gas emissions, many states have a blending obligation of 2%, 5% or 7% ethanol with petrol. Why has that not happened here? People assume that it requires reinventing the wheel. We need only copy what works elsewhere.

Why are we not replacing diesel with biodiesel in tractors, fishing boats and lorries? I visited the oil refinery owned at the time by ConocoPhillips, which had completed an international study on blending diesel with biodiesel. The company said it would do this in the morning in its refinery if the Government encouraged it to do so. It would cost no extra. It experimented by introducing the blended diesel with biodiesel into diesel pumps across Munster and nobody noticed. Engines do not need to be altered. We have not done this because we are the last in the class to perform. We are only now talking about reducing tax on low-emission cars, five years later.

We introduced one alternative energy requirement, AER, scheme after another, which failed to produce what they promised. We have improved the scheme somewhat recently but we are still a miserable performer for a country that has such opportunity and resources in terms of wind speed, consistency and so on. There are limitations because this is an island and the grid cannot rely too much on the inconsistency that comes from wind turbines. However, why have we not interconnected the Irish and British grids?

Five years ago when I was party spokesperson on energy I sat with Deputy Eamon Ryan on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. We called for the Government to pay for a proper interconnector for the Irish and British grids between Wicklow and Wales. Instead, the Government sought interest from the private sector, which was never realised. The interconnector has not been built and, as a result, the State does not have the capacity to significantly increase the contribution from wind energy to the domestic grid.

Other European countries with less consistent wind speed put Ireland to shame. For example, an article recently published regarding Spain states:

Taking advantage of a particularly gusty period, Spain's wind energy generators this week reached an all time high in electricity production, exceeding power generated by any other source in Spain. The nation's electricity network said in a statement, 'Wind power generation rose to almost 27% of the country's total power requirement. Wind powers contributes over 8,000 MW to the nation's power consumption of just over 31,000 MW'.

We still struggle in Ireland to produce slightly more than 500 MW. The Government has failed to impact on the key sectors of energy generation, transport and energy efficiency and then two months before a general election, it publishes a climate change strategy because green issues are topical. It is a good document, which contains many positive proposals, but the issue is whether it will be implemented and who is best to implement it. It is difficult to have faith in the Government parties on the basis of the past ten years that they are serious about implementing the strategy. I wish it were otherwise.

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