Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Two creative minds are a dangerous thing in the House. I thank the Deputy for the question. The overarching objective of the Government's energy policy is to ensure secure and sustainable supplies of competitively priced energy to all consumers. A well-balanced fuel mix that provides reliable energy, minimises costs and protects against supply disruptions and price volatility is essential to Irish consumers. While fossil fuels will remain part of the energy mix as we transit to a largely decarbonised energy system by 2050, significant progress is being made in increasing the share of renewables in the mix. Provisional figures provided by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, for 2014 indicate that energy import dependency fell to 85% in 2014. This was driven by lower demand for coal, oil and gas coupled with increased indigenous production of energy. The bulk of the increase in indigenous energy was from renewable sources and the remainder from peat.

In summer 2014, the European Commission, under the European energy security strategy, carried out stress tests in the event of a Russia-Ukraine gas disruption. This stress test was co-ordinated for Ireland by the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER. The results showed that Ireland was likely to be one of the countries that would be least likely to be adversely affected. The results also showed that, in the event of such a disruption, gas prices would be likely to increase. The European energy security strategy also proposes to increase energy production in the EU and to diversify supplier countries and routes. Energy security is a key pillar of the European Commission's recently published European energy union strategy, which Ireland strongly supports.

In Ireland we have a policy framework that is incentivising both an increase in indigenous renewable energy and the exploration and production of indigenous non-renewable fuel sources. Both of these energy sources contribute to reducing import dependency. Meeting our renewable electricity targets will require the delivery of critical grid infrastructure and the construction of additional renewable electricity generation capacity.

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There are a number of other important measures which also enhance our energy security such as EU funding for infrastructure, EU legislation that promotes co-operation on energy security, energy demand reduction measures, good emergency planning and oil storage reserves.

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