Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this Bill. The construction of the interconnector is a key priority in the energy White Paper and the programme for Government and I agree that there is a need to prioritise it. However, the Minister is using this Bill to give additional functions to EirGrid. On past record, EirGrid has shown tremendous capacity to delay projects over the past few years. If the Minister expands EirGrid's functions, will we create another monstrosity like the NRA, the HSE and others that has no direct responsibility to the Minister? Will the Minister be in total control of this agency and all the functions it will perform at all times? I am sure the Minister has found the delay and inability to get information from the agencies I mentioned distressing. In this House we cannot get answers to questions on those agencies from the Ministers responsible for them. That is unsatisfactory. I hope the additional functions being given to EirGrid under this legislation will not lead it to replicate the difficulties in those other agencies.

Practically all the personnel in EirGrid and CER are former ESB people. That is important because in the ESB structures they were important professional and technical people who administered the ESB and delivered a very important service to the country down the years. It worries me that Mr. Tom Reeves, the chairman of CER, has publicly stated his difficulty on renewables, and wind energy in particular, which would be close to the Minister's heart.

The programme for Government clearly states that by 2020 a total of 30% of our energy needs will be supplied from renewable energy. If a person who is in a strategic position with regard to the delivery of an ambitious project is publicly resistant to its being achieved, how can we be in a position to deliver on the specified target? This is important.

Energy projects take a long time to go through the planning process. An example of this occurred in County Galway when two hen harriers delayed a project for nearly two years. It was not known where they were or whether they were on the hillside at all, but it was supposed that they were there and that the project would have an impact on them. Deputy Ó Caoláin mentioned earlier the importance of the implementation and strengthening of the strategic planning infrastructure. I wholeheartedly agree that instances such as this should not delay important projects to the extent they have. It is on the record that many wind energy projects throughout the country have been delayed unnecessarily for such reasons.

There is much bureaucracy involved in getting access to the national grid. It is unbelievable. Without the most dogged determination on the part of the people concerned to advance their projects, they would fade away. Other fainter-hearted people might say it was impossible, drop the idea and go elsewhere to get their projects on stream. It is necessary for the Minister to eliminate such impediments to projects that are important for the country.

The announcement about the interconnector was made in 2006, yet two years on we are only at the elementary stages of the project. Let us compare this to the interconnectors from northern European countries such as Norway and Sweden to mainland European countries. A major project of 700 MW which has just been completed was carried out from start to finish in three years. For some reason we cannot compete with this. I blame the bureaucracy. With the additional functions we are giving to EirGrid we are compounding that difficulty.

The three important issues in this context are competitiveness, security and environmental sustainability. I will give an example of a project, and if the Minister can tell me this is competitive and will result in cheaper electricity, he should say so. I put down a parliamentary question to the Minister about this issue. A recently established energy company called Gamma, at Tynagh, Loughrea, County Galway, which is a mile from my home, has obtained an incredible contract to supply electricity to the national grid with payment for the full capacity output even if only a quarter to a half of the total output is drawn down. If competitiveness was a priority, surely nobody would have agreed to this. At any given time we could be paying full price for one half to three quarters of the capacity of the station, with energy being taken into the national grid and not used. How can we have competitiveness in energy supply in this context?

Customers are paying for this electricity with spiralling prices, as was pointed out by a Government backbench Deputy a few moments ago. Yet we are now going to obtain electricity from the UK, where the unit cost of electricity is lower than it is here at present. We must ask ourselves why we are putting all our eggs in one basket with one interconnector. Could the Minister tell me whether there will be a proposal, at the same time or immediately after, for an interconnector with mainland Europe? It is important that we do this. Can the Minister guarantee that we will have cheaper electricity as a result of the Bill? This is important for manufacturing and for domestic supply.

Within the next couple of months there is a great danger that the Minister's colleague and fellow party member, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, will have the responsibility of implementing the European habitats directive, which will prevent the domestic harvesting of peat in certain areas. The derogation that was there for the last ten years will cease at the end of this year. I ask the Minister to intervene with his colleague, at this crucial time of escalating costs and energy scarcity in certain areas, to request an extension of the derogation for a further period. I refer to the cutting and harvesting of turf for domestic purposes in County Galway. Certain areas in the west have been designated for protection. We have had controversies in the House in the past about the implementation of this directive. I ask the Minister to intervene with his colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, to request that he seek an extension of that derogation for a certain period of time until the current energy crisis is over. Many people who were accustomed to using turf had turned to oil or gas but the prices of these have now become prohibitive.

We need consistency of supply in Ireland and under this proposal we will be getting energy from the UK. It is a little ironic, when we see that a portion of British electricity is produced through nuclear energy and that the Government of which the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is a member has on numerous occasions objected to all that went on at Sellafield, that under this provision we will import electricity generated in such a way. It is a typical example of an Irish solution to an Irish problem that we close our eyes and do it. I wonder where the Minister, Deputy Ryan, stands on the question of the generation of nuclear energy in this country. I would greatly appreciate it if, when the opportunity presents itself, he would indicate without ambiguity the position on nuclear energy potential in Ireland.

There is a gas interconnector with Northern Ireland and from Northern Ireland, through Scotland, into mainland Europe. A few years ago during the winter difficulties that arose in the Ukraine with Russia there were headlines in the newspapers announcing a gas shortage and that we would be cut off. Was it not obvious that we, at the periphery of Europe, would be the first to be sacrificed in the supply of energy from so far away? In the contract that will obviously emerge for this interconnector and the supply, apart from the cost per unit, although I hope the costs do not finish up like those in Tynagh to the Gama group, does the Minister have a facility to ensure that if we provide the interconnector, we are guaranteed a supply at a reasonable arranged cost? Deputy O'Hanlon mentioned that due to the difficulties in the North there was one interconnector out of commission. What, if any, safeguards are there against such eventualities for any reason, apart from terrorist acts? From a commercial perspective, what guarantees on continuity of supply will be sought by the Minister or will it be the function of EirGrid to do that and the Minister will state, as the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government do in the case of the HSE and the NRA, respectively, that the agency is responsible and will take the blame? Some day down the road will the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources state that the matter is the responsibility of EirGrid and one cannot blame him? If this Bill is to be successful, the additional functions given in it should be clarified so that at all times the Minister, unlike the Ministers to whom I referred, will be responsible and in total control.

We hear many Deputies, particularly from Cavan Monaghan, speak about the North-South interconnector and the difficulties regarding power lines and the grid in those areas. Those difficulties arise throughout the country. In Galway, there is a proposal from Cashla in Athenry through to Connemara and EirGrid vehemently resisted for a long period even a slight movement of the line left or right, as the case might be, at the request of the local people. EirGrid stated that it could not be done and then suddenly stated it would reinvestigate the matter and it has been agreed. If there will be similar difficulties in this case to those many speakers outlined, it will be delayed far longer than we anticipate. We are two years down the road already and we have not started whereas other countries can provide such infrastructure, from planning to output, within three years. I hope that in this Bill the Minister is not creating another monster that will come back to haunt us all in the future.

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