Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The last thing I want to do is to increase Deputy Colreavy's level of unhappiness, but I have to say to him that what I have just put on the record of the House is that we do indeed have a very refined strategy in this area, and I refer him back to the Strategy for Renewable Energy 2012-2020, which I published last year. I suggest that Deputy Colreavy cannot take up the position he did when he argued that we cannot let turbines in here or let people come in to provide jobs in that fashion.

If we applied that to foreign direct investment generally, we would be 120,000 jobs worse off and a great deal of wealth generated and the development of a professional managerial core would be lost to the country. Deputy Colreavy should go back and read the strategy and accept that what I am seeking to do is to exploit the fact that we have a valuable indigenous resource that is renewable. That resource can be exploited to create jobs and wealth in this jurisdiction.

There is nothing unusual about a process of development that creates a product or service for export. That is as old as trade itself. In the past, we have not been able to export energy for a variety of reasons but this is now feasible technically. I agree with Deputy Colreavy that one must be careful and sensitive as to how one goes about that. I hope that will be possible.

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