Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The issues raised here today are issues that have been around for a long time. I will focus particularly on rural issues because I come from a rural place. I deal with the issues of power supply and car chargers etc. all the time. I recently wrote to the Minister about one aspect of this issue. Many tourists who drive electric cars along the Wild Atlantic Way find that there is nowhere for them to charge their vehicles. The Dutch ambassador visited Carrick-on-Shannon last week and he drove an electric car there from Dublin. In order to charge the car and he had to go to three charging stations before he found a charging point that worked in Carrick-on-Shannon. This issue is affecting people's confidence in investing in EVs. It needs to be dealt with now. It is not a new issue; it has been around for a long time.

On the issue of power infrastructure, it seems electrification will be the solution for most of the energy needs. With the increase in electric cars and electric heat pumps, etc., we will obviously have to increase infrastructure. However, that has not been done at the rate at which it needs to be done. The people I meet in rural Ireland who are farming on marginal land want other opportunities. They want to make money and prosper in their communities. Solar farms and solar panels on the roofs of their sheds are issues about which they want to hear good news. However, all they hear about are promises in the distance. They do not hear about actions to be taken now. These issues can be dealt with immediately. If the right structures are put in place and farmers are offered a small incentive and they receive a payback, they will invest and deliver on that.

It must be 30 years since I read The Growth Illusionby Richard Douthwaite. It was about the concept of how we measure everything and how much we consume rather than how well we do for our planet and our communities. We need to change and go back to that way of thinking. I was interested in what the Minister's colleagues said in regard to the circular economy and all that we are doing in that regard. However, we are not doing enough because the Government is not putting the infrastructure in place to ensure people can deliver that.

Another interesting issue raised by one of the Minister's colleagues was about building houses in rural Ireland. It was suggested that we should only build houses that people can walk or cycle to. In the parish where I live, there are 20 people per sq. km, which is unsustainable. Any parish that contains fewer than 35 people per sq. km is unsustainable for the community and the economy of that parish. Our school was a four-teacher school ten years ago; it is now a two-teacher school. The football club cannot field a football team. We do not want to build hundreds of houses in rural Ireland. We want to build enough to keep our communities alive; that is all we want to do. We are prepared to build those houses using timber-frame structures and hemp and lime infill. People in rural Ireland want to use technology which is carbon-capturing rather than carbon-using. The roads already exist. We do not suggest building out in the wilderness where no one lives. We are talking about areas that are already supplied by electricity and water. There are serviced sites in all of these areas, yet the whole emphasis seems to be on pushing people into towns, and particularly into cities, where we have more social problems and issues and where people are on top of each other. It simply does not work and there needs to be a review of that approach. As long as the Minister's party and the Government continues to push that line, it will turn people in rural Ireland against the Government and make them feel that environmental issues are about punishing and condemning them. People living in one-off rural houses are being told that they are wrong and are the problem. If the Government delivers that message to people, it will clearly not do well. This is an issue that needs to be dealt with immediately.

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