Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 July 2022

Green Hydrogen Strategy Bill 2022: Second Stage [Private Members]

 

6:05 pm

Photo of Matt CarthyMatt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague Deputy O'Rourke, along with Deputies Quinlivan and Cronin, on tabling this Bill. I thank the Minister for being here and for the response. I commend the fact that we are finally moving towards having a hydrogen strategy for the State. I would argue forcefully that it needs to be an all-Ireland strategy insofar as is possible. I am sure many will be surprised to hear that we do not actually have a hydrogen strategy. It is telling that we have all the debates about climate action, that we know that green hydrogen can become an invaluable mechanism to try to achieve our climate action targets, and that we have a consultation process in 2022 about targets to be reached in 2030. It is symptomatic of the challenges that we face to reach our climate targets.

I will make one point about what that strategy should look like once complete. I accept that we need to hear from stakeholders, experts, communities and industries about how we can have a fit-for-purpose green hydrogen strategy that delivers its full potential. We need to learn from the mistakes in other areas, particularly with respect to onshore wind energy, which never fully reached its potential and probably never will. That is largely due to the fact that it was completely outsourced and left to the private sector to deliver. The only consideration for the location of onshore wind farms became whether a private company could source land. Virtually nothing else was taken into account besides where land was available for purchase. We saw something that should have been a positive development for renewable energy become a source of conflict within communities and between individual landowners. It meant we never reached our full potential, because we never set out, at a Government level, a strategy that would ensure we had the best possible resources for onshore wind energy. We did not have a strategy about the optimum placement of turbines or how they would connect to the grid. I would argue strongly that the final strategy and roll-out must be Government-led. This cannot just become another mechanism whereby the State pays millions in taxpayers' money in subsidies but has no control of who benefits from it and how.

I want to comment on the ongoing debate on sectoral targets, which were due to be released this week. That has not happened.

7 o’clock

We are told it did not happen because there is a conflict between the respective Departments of the Ministers, Deputies Ryan and McConalogue. We have seen the outworking of what I consider a very silly debate. We hear some in this House saying climate action is the enemy of agriculture and we hear others on the so-called left trying to frame it the other way around, claiming agriculture is somehow the enemy of climate action.

We can have all the debates we want on whether the target should be 22% or 30%, but unless we have a strategy that will deliver whatever target is set, the figures are, in effect, meaningless. I deal on an ongoing basis with a very large number of areas within the agriculture sector in which there are targets being missed annually. Forestry is a perfect example. The programme for Government sets out a commitment that 8,000 ha of new afforestation will be planted. Since the Government came into office, it has hardly hit the 2,000 ha mark. I am told this year could be the worst ever in terms of new afforestation. I note this is the responsibility of a Green Party Minister of State. The failure to meet the targets annually has impacts because the Government's entire climate action strategy is based on the assumption we have been planting 8,000 ha for the past three years. Nobody has explained to me what happens when the Government fails to do what it set out to do. We must ask ourselves why the Government is failing in this regard. Why is it reaching only a quarter of its target? The answer is it has alienated the very people it needs to implement its strategy. In fact, there is no strategy, only a set of targets without a plan to achieve them.

It is the same in the case of organic farming. The EU has set a target of achieving 25% of agricultural land under organic production. One of the most shocking aspects of the programme for Government, especially considering the Green Party had just signed up to it and there was going to be a Green Party Minister of State with responsibility in this area, was its target of 7.5% organic production. That target was set, we were told, with the Green Party in government, because it is the current EU average. In fact, it is the average from 2018; the figure is now closer to 10%. We are chasing a target that is already three years old and failing miserably to meet it.

Across all areas of agriculture, farmers are willing and able to make a positive contribution on climate action objectives. The Government, rather than supporting them, is putting blockages in their way. At the same time, members of the Government are taking to the airwaves to talk about 30% cuts in emissions. Nobody has explained whether that means a 30% cut in food production, and what the consequences of that will be, or if it means different types of productions, in which case the question arises as to how we make the transitions. I have the same message for the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and his Department as I have for the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and his Department. If they want to set a target, they need to do so in conjunction with setting out a roadmap for how it will be achieved. Otherwise, we are just having another silly debate about numbers that mean nothing. I have a fear the Government is going to become the best in the world at setting climate action targets but the worst in the world at delivering climate action.

There needs to be a sea change in how we approach this task. If we do it in the way in which the Minister, Deputy Ryan, has developed a reputation for doing it, which is acting in conflict with communities, particularly rural communities, and working people and families in general, then we are on the road to nowhere. I appeal for a sea change. I welcome that the Government has accepted this Bill, albeit on a delayed basis. I welcome that we will have a hydrogen strategy. We need to do the same in respect of solar energy. I am currently writing a report on behalf of the agriculture committee on how our farms can be used as a source of solar energy generation. It is mind-boggling the hoops farmers have to jump through to contribute. Some of them have farm buildings with solar panels on the roof but they are forbidden by law to connect them to the grid because of the form of grant they receive. Nonsensical obstacles are being put in the road and they are turning people away from contributing positively, which, in my experience, the vast majority want to do.

Let us change tack on all of this. Rather than just citing numbers, let the Government set out how it plans to achieve those numbers. Rather than having silly debates about targets of 25%, 26% or 27%, let us set out for the world to see what a target of 22%, 25% or 30% would mean and what needs to be done to achieve it. We need to bring the public into a real, commonsensical, forward-looking and progressive debate rather than the silly rhetorical arguments that have been the hallmark of the Government's approach up to now.

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