Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I do not doubt that at all. There is a great deal of talk about this. All of those who come here from the Nordic countries, Denmark, Sweden or Norway, speak of our potential, for example, regarding mean wind speeds, which are the best in the world in many cases. We have not measured up to the talk we are generating.

Even when one looks at the places where approval for wind farms has been given, the waiting time to get into the grid afterwards is lengthy. Those who are already in the system and who have put their money where their mouths are to get approval and planning permission for wind farms find that at the end of that process there is no prospect of them being able to hook into the grid.

I take the point that there is a great deal of discussion about what we should do. I believe that in the case put forward by our party for an economic recovery authority there is genuine potential for job creation in this area. However, there are two major flaws in the triangle to which the Taoiseach refers. There is a great deal of discussion but we have not followed through with any structure or picture of how to connect this infrastructure to EirGrid. This is because there is no structure to deal with the provision of transmission systems throughout the country. The Deputies behind the Taoiseach and all other Deputies are aware of the vast public meetings that take place when announcements are made about provisions for pylons.

EirGrid has lodged its application for the project up through Monaghan. It is now three weeks before Christmas and already groups with an interest in this matter maintain we cannot have a proper analysis of it. Even when the Government sets out the programme for wind farm investment and if the local authorities decide on the locations in their respective counties that are high and medium level and so on, we have no structure for dealing with an overall provision of a proper grid system or a way to plug into that potential. It is a great failing of our national system that one can have millions of euro ready for the provision of turbines but no capacity to plug into that potential or to bring communities with us, other than piecemeal rows about a wind farm in Offaly, Roscommon or the west coast.

There should be a substantial parallel investment in an understanding of what we are about if we are serious about exporting energy within several years. There is the question of the provision of a grid system and the ability to explain to communities that it is in Ireland's economic interests to develop renewables on a scale compatible with the environment and people's livelihood. The question and all the discussion about renewables raises two fundamental and serious facts, namely, the inadequacy of the grid and the inability to plug into the potential with extra lines. The pace at which we are moving leaves us at a serious disadvantage. At the rate we are moving it will be some time beyond 2020 or 2030 before the infrastructure is built to tap into all that potential.

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