Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would never be that way. I thank the Regional Group for bringing this motion forward which I support. A few corrections need to be made to what was said by speakers earlier who would not have done much homework. In 1997, Derrybrien, under planning number 973470, did a full environmental impact survey, EIS. It was because Ireland did not transpose the environmental impact assessment, EIA, directive that it was brought to court later on. We must get the facts right. When planning was being sought, the people looking for the planning did everything by the book.

When the slippage happened, it was nothing to do with the planning, for anyone who understands construction. It was where stuff was piled on top of stuff, and which never should have been. That was a mistake. No one will deny that, but the record needs to be clarified and put right. If the Minister has liathróidí, he will turn around and get Derrybrien opened regardless of European courts or any other court. I hear everybody on about renewable energy. This is an opportunity for that, and straight away.

In the current energy crisis we have seen EU policy has failed, to be quite frank. A state needs to look after health, energy and water. Those are three things and to be honest, given the madness going on in Europe with this climate agenda that is being pushed, within five years we could be without energy and without food. That is a big worry with the madness that is happening at the moment.

Let us look at what we can do. The first thing we must do, which the Minister has not looked at yet, is hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO. There is HVO coming across from England right now and being used in homes. It is cutting the emissions by 90%. You change only a small part of the boiler. There are machines that are working on HVO. What has the EU done? It has banned HVO coming from America, for whatever reason. If the Minister wants a quick win on his so-called climate agenda, HVO is a win for him. On top of that, the ESB is playing every side of this fence at the moment. There is Lanesborough and there is Shannonbridge. I have talked to people in the ESB who have reliably informed me there are boilers that are needed and a few other bits required but the main infrastructure is there. Within six to eight weeks they could be up and running, according to people in the ESB who would know. We are exporting biomass at the moment, just in case people do not know, and we could have used it there. I am not saying we should use it forever but we need to take ourselves out of the storm we are in at the moment. There is obviously a quick win in LNG. We should do as the rest of Europe is and have a store for that as well. We should decide now that we are not going to listen to the civil servants who have brought us down these roads for years, that we are going to crack the whip and that above all that we are not going to listen to this agenda that has come out of Europe, which Europe now admits has failed and failed miserably.

Out there at the moment and in the budget the Government is bringing in, the Government talks about how it is going to look after the most vulnerable; and rightly so. There is the fuel allowance and all that, which we welcome. However, let us be very clear on this. There is a cohort of people in what I call middle Ireland who are above all these thresholds. You could say they are the people on between €25,000 or €30,000 and €50,000 or €60,000 and their tongues are out. They are paying mortgages, they have kids going to school and they have to drive to work in rural Ireland, in case the Minister did not know. These people are struggling and struggling badly. The Government needs to ensure those people are looked after. On top of that, we will have mass unemployment if the Government does not bring in a package for businesses so they can get solar panels and the like and puts money in their pockets to pay the cost of energy at the moment.

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