Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The concern is that we are behind the curve in using the potential we have and which others would envy. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal called for the EU to set a 2030 goal for renewable energy use but that is not how we are going to state our ambition in the climate change policy. It appears there is a conflict. I produced a Bill that sought just that. Our climate change legislation will not produce targets, it will produce sectoral plans. That is what seems to be called for at European level.

We should be considering policy development for offshore wind feed in tariff schemes to make it attractive for people to invest and not be looking for parcels of land. I want to see wind energy exported in the same way as tomatoes or beef or anything else but we can do it in a way that does not have the kind of impacts that large industrial onshore turbines would have. Even Portugal, which is under pressure, is investing in floating platforms for wind energy. There are ways of doing it and we are behind the curve.

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