Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this important issue. Security of energy has been brought into focus generally by the fact that we have seen over the past number of months how fragile a nation we are when it comes to our energy supply. This has been reflected in a lack of investment over a number of years. It is important that we examine what we are doing now and how we address this problem so that we do not have to face it again.

The legislation needs to ensure that the consumer does not pay for this and the people who should are those who are using it in the main. We have had people talking about data centres and their footprint across this country. Data centres are important but they need to up their game to pay for the energy. We as a country should develop our data centre network in pace with the available electricity capacity we have. We need to look at that.

I reiterate to the Minister of State what I have said in the House previously, which is that when we have people who want to create something different and produce their energy in a different way, they are sometimes penalised. For instance, homeowners who installed microgeneration solar panels in their roofs to capture the sun to create electricity in their homes always operated under the assumption that they would feed back into the grid and would benefit from that. That was supposed to have been in place from 1 July last year. I still have people contacting me who have no information as to when they are going to get paid, how they will be paid, or the rate at which this payment will be made. There has been a complete lack of communication. When we talk about all the things we are going to do in this country, microgeneration is an area whereby people will produce electricity. At the moment, they are feeding it back into the grid. These people feel more aggrieved at the moment because the price is going up and they feel that the product that they are giving back into the grid is more valuable. Yet, they are giving it away, are not getting any money for it and do not even know how much of it is going to the grid because the meters are not there to measure it.

We have not planned this very well and have created a very bad taste in people’s mouths because they have made this effort and have done this. When someone goes to their house and looks at the system they have put in and everything is fine, people then say not to touch it until we have the plan in place as to how they will get paid. At the moment, this plan is supposed to be in place and people are supposed to have been paid from this month. It has not happened yet, however, for many people in my constituency of Galway East. That is something we need to address.

When we look at the transition we have to make, in which we all have a responsibility, we must ensure that it is planned, that is, not so much just a broad plan or a big headline about money but we have to develop it in a way whereby everyone knows what is going on.

There is major potential in this country to develop green energy that will help people make the transition. The offshore energy potential on the west coast is second to none. I fear that the pace at which we are looking at that will mean that much of the benefit that will accrue from that will go some place else and not to Ireland. We need to develop our ports to ensure they can take the capacity and potential that is there to ensure the servicing of pylons and all of that type of work is done in our country. That maintenance work should not go to Norway or some place similar. It is important that we get the value added to whatever we are doing in this country. We have significant assets on our shores and it is important that we ensure we harness those to their full potential for our entire population and economy. If we concentrate on that as much as we have concentrated on the data centres coming into the country, we will be able to have more data centres as we will have green energy. The data centres themselves, however, will have to pay for the energy that they are using at a correct rate to ensure they are contributing to the cost of the electricity.

I have said before that we have done things in the past that have not been right.

I will give what is a typical example of the wind farm erected in Derrybrien in my constituency. It was a disaster from the word go. When the works were happening there was a huge mudslide. It was terrible for the environment and the area. We got it to a stage whereby it went into production and it was producing electricity. It also had many other benefits for the community. All sorts of masts were helping with communications. I have received a letter from the Taoiseach stating that it will be decommissioned and will not go ahead. The advice is that a mess was made of the planning from the start. We do not seem to learn. This project has gone on a journey to hell rather than to purgatory. There seems to be no way out for it other than to let it burn away.

When the pylons come down they will be very valuable to somebody. They will probably go to another country where they will be used to generate wind energy. We can give out about it but we should not let this lesson go without correcting it for the future. We have to make sure it is corrected in a way that we can simplify how we realise the potential of using offshore and onshore renewable energy to develop our electricity supply. We have the potential. We have everything going for us. This is a classic case where we introduced legislation that handcuffed us from the start. We have poor transposition of European laws and we have handcuffed ourselves in many areas. The Derrybrien situation should be examined not in ten years time but now to see how we correct it so it never happens again and we do not end up in the courts in Europe or paying fines or heavy penalties for something we did wrong in the eyes of Europe.

The Bill is important for energy security. Much of what we do is a knee-jerk reaction to situations as they arise. We need to make sure we are not including strategies, plans and announcements. We need to make sure that what we put in place is workable and that we see the results fairly quickly. There is great potential but there must also be investment to make sure it happens. We have tabled amendments to the Bill and I hope they will be taken on board.

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