Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the reply. He did not indicate whether or not Ireland will consider joining Austria in the legal action in which it has decided to engage, even though there has not been full publication of the decision.

There are the obvious environmental dangers that I mentioned. We have had difficulties in recent times with Chernobyl and Fukushima that arose from man-made and natural disasters. Apart from that, if state subsidisation is allowed for a particular form of energy production, where does that leave the other energy production modes? In renewable energy, on which we have European Union targets to meet, anti-competition laws seem to apply fully, but because this is such a major project, it is allowed to get subsidies, both in terms of the capital funding for its structure and in terms of the cost ratio for its current operations. Both of those seem questionable in terms of EU policy and I understand that is the basis on which Austria is taking the case. From the point of view of best practice and statutory provisions, even though the Commission has made its decision, would it not be appropriate that we should also have recourse to the European Court of Justice to determine whether anti-competition mechanisms are in operation in this case?

We have considerable agricultural capacity here in Ireland. We are building that for the future and expanding to a significant degree. As well as the threat to the people of Ireland, and there is always the danger of a serious threat despite what is said about the prevailing winds likely to be going in the opposite direction, we were affected to a considerable degree when Chernobyl exploded and we could not sell Irish lamb from various areas for a period. Chernobyl is a long distance from Ireland.

All the issues would indicate that it would be well in our interests to ensure we are involved at the highest level in this decision-making process in the European Union.

See this speech in context