Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Public opinion is very much in favour of this legislation. Deputy McLoughlin has done the country a service by bringing it forward and I congratulate him on his efforts. I do think, though, that we have to get into the real world with regard to energy and the future of our economy. We have to strike a balance between the issues around climate change and where we are going to get our energy from. If we all accept and sign up to the first part of that argument, which is that in theory we will not use hydrocarbons and fracking in the future, then we must accept the quid pro quoin terms of the infrastructure, in particular energy infrastructure, that will be necessary and is necessary right now and which is opposed with the same vehemence as fracking in some parts of our country.

The real difficulty is that when the lights go out, when the factories do not have the capacity to run their machines, when people cannot drive their cars or light their homes, then it all comes home. The reality is that there should be an intense effort by the Government, the Opposition and others to find a solution to the opposition to energy infrastructure in our country. Specifically, if we all favour wind energy, and I know the Green Party does, why do we always object to the infrastructure that carries that wind as it comes from more and more parts of our country, particularly the south west and the west? There is absolute hostility, including in areas not far from my constituency. It does not make sense to say "No" to fracking and to hydrocarbons and then say "No" to renewable energy.

How do we strike the bargain? How do we do the deal? What we need to do is to engage intensively with issues such as the height of the pylons, the distance they are located from homes and all the other issues that have been raised by community groups right around the country. If we do not find a resolution to this, we are the people who will have our heads in the sand. Currently, our society is not paying the price. There is a price to pay for moving away from hydrocarbons and that is the price I see. We must negotiate it. We must ensure also that for those living near some of these proposed infrastructures, such as pylons, there should be a significant benefit to the local community - to schools, hospitals and so on - and there should be a specific formula that gives a very significant pay-off to those communities and also to the households that are in sight of these pylons. There should be a significant financial benefit in terms of energy supply to the homes of those who live on or near those grids.

The reason for this is that if the benefit to the city comes from the grid and the energy flowing through it, and if it is facilitated by the communities that are faced by these pylons in their area, then it would be unfair if there is not a very significant local benefit. I believe that is the way forward. We cannot always win these arguments but we have to strike that balance. I hope our debates on these issues will look at that specifically.

On fracking itself, I agree there has been a very poor history at some sites and Deputy Scanlon spoke about devastated communities. However, I have seen fracking in operation not 300 yd. from a school and a community, and there were none of the effects the Deputy mentioned because that site was properly run and met the requirements the local community placed on it. I accept our society is not prepared to and will not pay that price, but it is not all as it is painted.

Another point made by other speakers is that as technology changes, which it will, and as we can extract energy from different sources in different ways, things will change. The New York Timesthis week pointed out that in another 20 years there will not be any more hydrocarbon fuelled cars as they will be electric vehicles. That is the future and we have to move towards that. At the same time, we have to be practical and realistic. The challenge for all of us is not to pass this Bill: the challenge is to find a way to accept the energy infrastructure that must absolutely and definitively come in its place.

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