Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Regional Group is putting forward solutions in this regard and they need to be considered. One of the reasons keeping Derrybrien going does not necessarily make sense is that when the energy system is short of generating capacity is when the wind is not blowing. That is at the heart of many of the problems we have. We have a lot of renewable energy. The risk of a blackout or brownout occurs only when the wind is not blowing. That is why keeping Derrybrien online is not particularly useful in terms of the energy crunch we face. Lanesborough and Shannonbridge created a lot of employment in the midlands for a long time but peat, by its nature, did not produce an awful lot of energy.

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