Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this matter. Prior to becoming a Deputy three years ago, I became involved in an environmental issue which led me to believe we must take our environment seriously. That issue involved hazardous waste which was not being managed properly and caused grave concern in my area.

The major change in recent times is with regard to the number of young people who are aware of climate change throughout the world, particularly in our country. They have not experienced a hard winter such as was experienced 20 years ago and I am not sure what they would think if they did. Eight or ten years ago, we were told Ireland would be covered in sand because we would have no rain but that has not happened.

Fine Gael believes the twin challenges of climate change and the need to adjust our energy usage patterns are the most urgent facing Ireland and the world. Addressing these challenges is a priority for Fine Gael. The unsustainable growth in greenhouse gas emissions needs to be halted and reversed if our climate is not to be irreversibly damaged.

Fine Gael is disappointed the Government has failed to meet Ireland's responsibilities under the Kyoto Protocol and our greenhouse gas emissions are twice the overall target. Ireland's biggest contributor to CO2 emissions is the transport sector, which contributes 33% of Ireland's energy related CO2 emissions, a share higher than any other sector, including industry. Years of underfunding and underdevelopment of Ireland's public transport sector has led to Ireland becoming car dependent and to the growth rate in consumption of fossil fuels in the transport sector since 1990. Fine Gael is constantly promoting the fast-tracking of high capacity commuter public transport services into Dublin and other cities. We will reform vehicle registration tax through the establishment of a system of energy efficiency labelling for vehicles, with lower rates of VRT for those cars with more efficient engines.

Fine Gael supports the Stop Climate Chaos call to action. The Government must meet its commitment to reduce by 3% per year greenhouse gas emissions and to produce one third of all energy from renewable sources by 2020. Any slippage from these targets is unacceptable because this is the best chance to tackle climate change.

The current environmental topic in my county concerns EirGrid's proposal to put a 400 KV power line through Meath, which is meeting a serious challenge. I have not witnessed such a challenge previously, despite having been involved in football and farming. Some 24 local groups from counties Cavan, Meath and Monaghan have gathered, night after night, to address this subject. They are totally opposed to the idea of this cable being laid overground, particularly as the public has not received enough expert advice on health.

EirGrid has acted in a poor fashion in the way it went about developing the project. It advertised the details of the project in the newspapers six weeks ago and it was up to local people to find out about it, whereas the Government was aware of the project last March.

I am disappointed because when I asked the Minister a parliamentary question as to when the Meath-Cavan 400 KV power line project was first submitted to his Department for consideration and when his Department approved the decision for EirGrid to proceed with the project, his reply stated that the Minister has no responsibility to the Dáil in this matter, which falls within the remit of EirGrid and the Commissioner for Energy Regulation.

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