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

Work on wave and tidal energy is essentially still at research stage. The expert advice is to the effect that we look to have a propitious resource, but it is still not commercial. To answer the Deputy's question, these energy options will not be integrated early into the system, but, nonetheless, we are maintaining our investment and partnerships in continuing to test the research in that area.

Wind energy is an indigenous renewable resource and I hope the Government is extremely sensitive to the concerns of people as expressed in various forums and so on. Community acceptance is absolutely critical if we are to exploit what is an indigenous, valuable, renewable resource that has the capacity to create jobs, bring revenue streams into the country, provide rates and other revenue for local authorities and so on. It is very difficult to do it without community acceptance. It is essential that the Government and other institutions of State which are charged with implementation of plans in this area and which have responsibility for refurbishing the grid also demonstrate sensitivity and seek to gain community acceptance for necessary decisions.

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