Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When submissions on onshore energy were called for I made one outlining how that should happen. Unfortunately, we often develop policy the wrong way around. We make the mistake and then try to fix it. We should have studied how they did it in Denmark where the community is involved and where the Aarhus Convention has real meaning. The people who have responsibility for developing the policy have made mistakes. All the criticism can be on this side but we have got away from the point I am trying to make in the question, about the potential for offshore development. That is my focus today. It is very easy to absorb the time by focussing where the row is now.

It is on future policy development and the conflict on the climate change policy we are going to develop. What the Minister is signing up to, with other European energy Ministers, would seem to be at variance with our national policy on that, which is about a target, not just a sectoral plan.

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