Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to a point I think I have made to the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Murphy, in the past. It is worth repeating that I think our interests in this European Council and in the upcoming talks around Brexit are that we play a constructive role in trying to get agreements on some of the standards and working arrangements that are not necessarily the big headline issues around trade agreements. We have to get the UK to buy in to existing and future standards and regulations from the European Union if we are going to minimise the effect of dislocation. To make that point and to give credence to it, I want to give a couple of practical examples of what I am talking about.

The first area is energy. We have to think big and long-term for energy. We have to think of the next couple of decades rather than just the next two years if we are to get a relationship that is going to work. I would love for the UK to reverse out of this Brexit process, but that does not look likely. If we are going to think, let us think of decades rather than just the next couple of years. In that period, we are going to have to decarbonise our energy system completely. We are going to go to a variable power supply. It is clear now that renewables are winning. It is going to require an incredibly complex balancing system to allow that to provide for our industries. We know now that technology has come down in price. The key thing is around some of the standards and market rules to make it work. It is not in any trade agreement. It is about specific sectoral agreements.

For example, in the area of energy, one of the projects that I think is going to come in the next decade or so is a big offshore development in the Irish Sea. Offshore wind energy has come down in price and is competitive. It is competitive with any other fossil fuel and is half the price of nuclear energy. People are now looking at the prospect of us building something like 3 GW worth of offshore wind power facilities in the Irish Sea and connecting it to the Isle of Man. I know this sounds slightly fanciful or scientific, but this is the reality of what people are thinking about now. It will use a converter station on the Isle of Man and ship that power. There will be a grid line coming from Scotland, a grid line coming from Ireland and a grid line going into Wales and England. That is what people are investing in and thinking about now. These are the projects that are real. The Danes recently showed that they can bring the cost right down. This can be done by getting the market rules conditions right, which takes uncertainty out. It is all capital costs, so by bringing uncertainty down, the costs come down. The Danes got bidding prices right down to 5 cent per kilowatt-hour.

One of the things we need to do in the negotiations and which needs to be done reasonably quickly is to ask if we are agreed on the market rules around how these interconnectors work. Are we agreed on the half hour or 15-minute balancing arrangements to make this wider regional market work? Are we going to agree on the digital communications systems that will back it up? When power is being shipped over distances like that, it is run on a very complex network system which comprises not just cables but also a digital network. We need to get those standards right. The UK will want to do this. It just published a policy document saying that, going forward until 2030, its big investment is in offshore wind and in interconnection. It is short of power. Its only other options are expensive, so it will want to do it. It is in our interests to do it. If we get it right, not only do we get it right for east-west connections, but it will also help North-South connections, and it will help our economy because we have a very large sea area and very strong wind resources. I do not think the agreement on that set of rules can wait. Rather than wait until after Brexit and all the other stuff is done and then start talking about those arrangements, we are better off getting in early on that set of details.

The second example, and it is related, is that I said that that energy network we are going to have to build is also going to be centred around a digital network. The switching on and off of devices for energy efficiency will be involved in this balancing system.

That requires digital signals and the sharing of data.

The second big area of critical importance for our economy is to get the rules on digital policy agreed, not necessarily in any trade agreement but we must agree on what will replace the privacy shield and the former safe harbour arrangements. Do we trust our data if it is over in the UK? It will affect the companies in the silicon docks here. Everyone is rightly concerned about agriculture but if we do not get those standards arrangements right, it will be the first shock. It will be a shock if, the day after Brexit, people are told they cannot buy anything online from the UK because we do not trust its entire system. Those standards around privacy, access to data and copyright are really complex legal areas where we need to adapt and change to make sure we have the public confidence to operate these systems. We saw in our debate last night on the water issue what the lack of confidence in sharing data and information can do. The capability to develop this new economy can be shattered. It is absolutely in our interest. I am speaking for my constituency of Dublin Bay South. We have 50,000 to 60,000 jobs in this industry. If we can get this right it will be hugely important for our industry here but it is wider than that.

There are risks involved. The UK tends to be good at digital policy so it will be badly missed from the European Union for the formulation of digital policy. We tend to be slightly closer to the UK, because we are both common law systems, than we are to a German or French model. It is in our interest to make sure the UK is still involved in setting, adapting and abiding by those digital rules. One risk is that there will be complete dislocation if the UK is just shut out because then we will be on the far side of the UK in a very difficult way. The other risk is they may go and just have higher standards and better rules and we would lose some of the investment we get here. It is those standards we need to get right.

When we discussed this a number of months ago, the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Murphy, said we will do the difficult Brexit stuff first and the divorce Bill, and six or nine months later, if it is going well we will maybe start to set up the talks around those further strands. I do not know if that is in our interest. It would be better for us to act in some ways as an interlocutor and to use our strategic position to create a safe space before we even start talking about this because it is incredibly complex stuff. In a sense, we hold the cards because I cannot see the UK walking away from digital, energy or environmental standards that the European Union sets. The UK is not big enough so it risks being cut off if it ignores those standards. I think it will opt in. If it opts in to those standards it is as significant as all the talk about trade arrangements and tariffs and so on. We need to get the standards and regulations right. In some way, it is an opportunity for us to look at where those standards in digital policy are going. In my mind, we need to go to a much more citizen centred standards approach on digital policy in the European Union and not just a system of big state control or one of huge state surveillance. There has to be trust in these networks. It should not be a system in which only corporate interests such as the Facebooks, Googles, Microsofts and Yahoos of this world are setting standards. It should be the European Union creating a citizen centred digital regulatory system. We have the opportunity in these talks to push that and to be seen as an ethical, high standard home of good digital policy. That is the opportunity if we take the interlocutory role in the negotiations. It is the same on energy. We should get those regulations right. The time is right because the European Union is revising its whole European governance market rule system so it is up for grabs. Why would we wait? Why would we not get in early and be seen to be an ethical leader in terms of moving to this cleaner digital economy? The same can apply in agriculture. If we set the standards on GMOs, steroids in beef and so on, they will protect our interests as much as the tariffs or other arrangements which have such prominence in our debate.

I am not closely involved in the talks but we have a lot of political capital because people are very concerned about the all-island network. We should not expend all our capital just looking at our own island. We should think slightly bigger and broader. We should put our capital behind those standards negotiations and create a safe space for talks because we get on well with the British. It would serve our interests well. It would minimise the risk of a hard Border on this island. It also places us, as a country, in a forward thinking progressive new economy area. We have good contacts in the UK Government. The permanent secretary in the area of industrial strategy is our former communications regulator. The UK energy regulator is our former energy regulator. We happen to have good contacts and abilities to talk to each other. We have a similar common law system. We should not expend our political capital within a narrow focus. We should think big, think long term and think of where the real economy is going. That would be a better strategy to apply in the Council.

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