Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy on the need for radical reform of how our democracy operates and this Government is determined to carry that out. We have already done a number of things, including ending corporate donations, introducing gender quotas and a proposal to abolish the Seanad and change the function of the Dáil to make it more efficient and downsize it. We have significantly reduced the cost of running this House and the Government in general, including ministerial expenses and so on. That effort will continue through the life of this Government, and a major part of it is the proposal to have a referendum asking the people for their verdict on whether we need two Houses in this Parliament. In my view, we do not. My understanding is that no guillotine is proposed on that legislation until Thursday, so we should see how the debate goes between now and then and how many speakers wish to contribute. There is no decision to close the debate until Thursday at the earliest and we are sitting late this evening to facilitate as many speakers as possible.

We have some really ambitious thinking in Ireland with regard to wind projects, not only in how we produce renewable energy for our own grid but also in an ambition to export large volumes of green energy into the UK, which will pay for that energy. There is already a memorandum of understanding in place for the UK to import green energy from Ireland, which can be subsidised and come from projects in various parts of Ireland that have been through a robust foreshore process. I and many others are excited by that project and we strongly support it.

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