Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I may be so bold, as the Ceann Comhairle and I well know, I do not come from a maritime county. As we all know, however, we have a multiplicity of harbours in our county. We have two canals, a harbour in every town and the Barrow navigation. We are fairly familiar with the waterways.

I agree with much of what my colleague, Deputy Connolly, had to say. I would respectfully put my hand up in defence of some of the poor, much-maligned Government backbenchers, who can never do anything right. We have to progress every way. We have to progress to protect the environment and look after our people and their ongoing needs. We must progress as well in view of the fact that our population is much greater than it was. It is almost double what it was in the 1950s. That was progress whether we liked it or not. It was something that makes our existence here more sustainable.

I strongly support the Bill and its concept. I feel it should contain a reference to planning and development as well because, as we know, on land, the local authorities are governed by planning and development. There is no reason we cannot apply that to the sea as well. There are, however, huge amenities there, both on land and at sea. It would be very remiss of us to avoid doing what we need to do now to modernise, establish the protection and allow the development that is in keeping with that protection within the guidelines while at the same time meeting modern requirements. That is progress and we should deal with that.

I noted that my south Kildare colleague mentioned the marine and the Naval Service. I would echo that. We all have respect for our military, be it marine, naval or air. We need to bear in mind that we take them for granted very often and we should not do so. They are an important part of our constitutional package. We must always keep that in mind and show them the respect they deserve. I hope that is borne in mind in the course of ongoing debates on this particular issue or other similar or associated issues.

I am a supporter of alternative energy. The difficulty is how to provide it and how to achieve it in the best way possible, in agreement with the environmental and the various constituent bodies we have to deal with. If we do not, we will find it impossible to progress. A couple of years ago, in the course of a general election, I ran into a lot of hail over wind turbines. Everybody had every reason in the world there should be no wind turbines at all. They wanted to prove they were bad for your health, they would fry your brain, there was no future or living with them, and the amount of noise they generated was worse than anything that was ever known or had been measured before. This was despite the fact we had been living with ESB generating stations for almost 100 years. A huge amount of noise was generated by the ESB stations in their immediate vicinity. We had workers who worked in those facilities all those years and nobody ever raised a word about their health or their hearing or anything else. If there was ever a noise I experienced, it was when I spent a lot of time with machines and heavy machinery. I can assure the Minister of State that the inside of a generating station generated more noise than anybody would ever want to hear.

We are now looking at alternatives because this may affect our ability to provide alternative energy. I am a little worried that referring to reliance on the ocean as a location to generate energy may prove foolhardy if it cannot be done and if it does not happen within a specified time. We need to do what we are proposing to do within ten years. That is the time limit we have. I do not believe we can achieve it within ten years. If we cannot, then we need to make alternative plans as well, whatever they may be. Of course, what we develop on the sea must be in line with what protects the marine as well. We cannot just decide, as we have been doing in the past, to pour the sewage into the sea from wastewater all over the country. Nobody cares about it, and given the choice, as we were, of paying water charges or pouring the wastewater in the sea, we said to continue pouring the wastewater into the sea. It is hardly a way to preserve our amenities.

What I would urge is this. I am not so certain how sustainable the generation of large-scale generating plants at sea will be in the future.

There is no reason to believe some of the gales, hurricanes and tsunamis that have affected other parts of the globe will not reach the Atlantic as well. We need to be cautious and mindful of what might happen and we need to have an alternative plan. There are various other ways we can generate electricity. We may have to generate more on land. The Arklow Bank is a classic example of where it works but there is very shallow water there. One does not have to go down too far until one hits rock. That is not the same in parts of the Atlantic. A little caution in regard to what we are doing needs to be borne in mind.

It is in everybody's interest to protect our environment and to provide for the livelihoods of the people who live on this island. We will be charged with the responsibility. We could decide to stop growing food and then we could die of starvation, which is a worldwide issue. It was never more prevalent than it is at present. With the growing population worldwide, there is more starvation than ever. Some of it is in areas of conflict, but not all of it, and we need to be mindful of that. When people tell us it will be all right at the time and all the food we like can be imported from elsewhere, but they will have it and we will have to get it. That is the problem.

I support the Bill and its concept. I support the protection of the environment and the protection of our own industries, insofar as we can, to ensure we can exist in the future and that we do not become the victims of a worldwide campaign that would leave us poorer and others improving at our expense.

See this speech in context