Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is exactly the point. It is an intermittent source which still requires us to have other sources. There are serious questions. Wind Aware Ireland, of which, excuse the pun, the Minister will be aware, suggests that, at best, wind can only impact approximately 3% or 4% of our emissions. Nevertheless, a massive proportion of the public money going into renewables is going into this area which seems to be having a negligible effect on CO₂emissions while serious questions arise in regard to the cost-benefit analysis of industrial wind as against a greater emphasis on insulation, passive house standards, free or heavily subsidised public transport to get people to use the system, afforestation, solar and all sorts of other areas. A focus on those areas would have a far bigger impact in terms of both energy security and reducing CO₂emissions, which we are not doing terribly well on.

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