James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Deputy Stanley on introducing the Bill, which Fianna Fáil supports. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, for his remarks. It is the first time I have debated with the Minister, Deputy Bruton, since he took up his new role and I take the opportunity to wish him well. I highlight that we had a social media Bill before the relevant committee this afternoon and there is a broadband Bill in the system as well. I look forward to debating with the Minister and to constructive engagement during his time in the role.

As I said, Fianna Fáil will be supporting the Bill. It is a critical and common-sense Bill that has many evident benefits. I have met many companies in the sector and I have met representatives of the Irish Solar Energy Association who have articulated the many obvious benefits of solar energy. It is inspiring to see smaller companies in particular entering that space. The industry in Ireland has the potential to deliver up to 5 GW of capacity between 2019 and 2030. To put this in context, this is the kind of energy the entire west coast could produce using offshore renewable wind in the same period, so there is a great opportunity in this regard. However, while these companies and others in the same space are ready and waiting to lead the charge in driving up the production of green energy in Ireland, they need our help.

In the main, the issues raised are not barriers which they themselves have created. They are barriers which have come about as a result of the failure of the legislative system to accommodate technological developments. The renewable electricity support scheme, RESS, was a start, but we need to go further. We need to act to facilitate microgeneration through the opening of the grid; the introduction of feed-in tariffs and support for community organisations, as well as households to take part. It seems to be perfectly reasonable and good public policy that a parish hall could avail of these benefits in the same way as a private household. Grid connection rules should be altered to make it easier for microenergy and community energy projects to gain access to the grid. It should also include reforms to make it easier for large-scale consumers such as hotels and airports to generate their own electricity. Part of energy security is energy supply. We know that transmission is a huge factor. There is no substitute for a robust, integrated, well managed grid. EirGrid manages it well but the Celtic interconnector and the Ireland-UK interconnector will come under pressure post Brexit.

Self-production is not a quick fix, but it would certainly be of assistance. It begins at home. We need to increase the availability of space in the literal, real estate sense, with the greater use of solar energy on rooftops. The planning process, particularly in situations where a panel may not be visible from the ground, needs to be reviewed. There is a significant opportunity to increase the number of businesses and community facilities which can host panels. Consideration is needed at a high level of the barriers and solutions required in the use of private wires. How do we manage the planning framework and the practicalities in running a cable across another person's land? A systematic review is needed of State-generated costs in the deployment of solar energy. With only 12 years to act, the State should not be acting as a barrier to entry.

We must learn the lessons from onshore wind projects when engaging with communities. There are huge benefits in the use of all kinds of renewable energy resources, including onshore wind, but that sector, in particular, highlighted the wrong way to do it, with a lack of engagement and, at times, truculent and adversarial engagement with local communities in the case of many onshore wind energy project developers. That is certainly not the road to go down.

The bottom line is that renewable energy resources development cannot happen without community support. This needs to be reflected in the approach of developers, wind and solar energy project developers, with a stronger emphasis on community benefit, engagement and consultation. Up until now, investment in a local amenity has been the mainstay of community benefit schemes. Fianna Fáil believes this system should be changed such that all individual households in the area surrounding an energy development would benefit from its construction. These issues must be addressed as we are failing to meet our targets. Worse than that, we are failing to facilitate those who would help us to meet them. When I put a question to the Taoiseach last year on the Order of Business about what provision the Government was making for fines that would inevitably accrue from failing to meet our targets at European level, he somewhat glibly replied that he would not make provision in this year's Finance Bill because it was a matter to be dealt with in the following year's Finance Bill. More substantive engagement is required.

The world is 1° Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels. Levels of CO2 are almost 50% higher than before the Industrial Revolution. Levels of methane are now 2.5 times higher than in pre-industrial times. The last time the Earth had a similar level of CO2 was 3.5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2° Celsius to 3° Celsius warmer and sea level was 10 m to 20 m higher than it is now. In the past year we have seen 100-year weather extremes. What was once a one in 100 years flood has become a once in a decade flood or once in a year flood, as my colleague Deputy Eugene Murphy knows well. In October last year there was Storm Ophelia; we had Storm Emma in March when we also had snow drifts the likes of which had not been seen in generations. We also had the wettest spring and the hottest period in the summer in 100 years. For any climate change deniers, the proof has been in the elements during the past 12 months alone.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has published the most chilling warning yet. Political leaders must act now if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 45% of 2010 levels within 12 years. It will be a difficult target to reach, particularly given that we are already behind. Even if we do reach it, we will only limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. We have reached the point of no return and are now dangling our toes over the side of the abyss. Despite this, it has taken a Bill brought forward by an Opposition deputy to prompt the Government to act. I note that the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, has said he is committed to ensuring Ireland will be a leader on climate change. I wish him well in that regard. He may wish to start by addressing the backlog of inaction in his Department.

The proposal put forward by Deputy Stanley is not controversial. It is a good common-sense proposal. A total of 99% of the members of the Citizens' Assembly supported the introduction of legislation to support microgeneration. Electric Ireland ended its feed-in tariff regime for new customers in 2014. In the four years since, no significant legislative action has been taken to address this obvious issue. I was startled when, shortly after being elected in 2016, a constituent approached me to tell me about his house on the Kildare-Wicklow border on which he had installed solar panels at great expanse. He was very keen and enthusiastic about them, but, figuratively speaking, the rug had been pulled from under him when the tariff scheme ended abruptly in 2014. I was shocked because I could not see any significant solid reason from a public policy point of view why it should have been ended, rather than enhancing a scheme of that nature.

The Government should consider this as an opportunity to address the issue and speed up the development of microgeneration. We have a couple of technical concerns with the Bill which we will save for Committee Stage. Deputy Bríd Smith introduced a Bill on the expiry of fossil fuels. It is related to this Bill because we know that we are in a climate emergency, but there are some advocates within and outside the House who believe such measures as keeping the ground Bill, as it is referred to colloquially, should not be advanced. While there may be some legitimate concerns within the industry, I suggest aggressive adversarial approaches would be counter-productive. That Bill seeks to prohibit the granting of future licences. However, the typical lifetime of a well, from discovery to close-down, is approximately 50 years. If a licence was to be granted tomorrow, the last barrel of oil would be taken from the ground in 2068. Even if the Bill was to be passed, that would not exactly be an immediate shutdown. The industry should take note and some appropriate actions.

I look forward to engaging on the Bill when it proceeds to Committee Stage.

See this speech in context