Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Solidarity-People Before Profit for bringing the motion before the House. This Government has led us to a situation where it has failed to prepare this country for the increase in electricity usage. It speaks fine words, but looking at its actions, they do not add up. It is a natural consequence of all this that we find ourselves discussing the renationalisation of the energy system, as this motion proposes.

We face a heightened risk of blackouts this winter, which are due entirely to the failure of successive governments to manage energy supply and demand, especially when we consider that demand has shot up by 12% in five years and little preparation has taken place. We are constantly being faced with the inaction of a Government that has few ideas and little intent to act in the interests of the people it is supposed to serve. Time and again, however, the Opposition is spoken down to by the Government parties who claim to be the authority on all things, but they are also the authority on how not to prepare.

We need to be self-sufficient in terms of energy. In our policy document, Sinn Féin Vision for Renewable Energy, we outline the actions we would take in government to help reach 80% of renewables by 2030 and grow the proportion of community-, State- and domestically owned renewables. Sinn Féin has led the call on harnessing the potential of green hydrogen. We have among the best offshore wind potential in the world and we are not using it to its fullest, yet the Government’s consultation process on this ended in September and we remain without a national strategy. Because green hydrogen can be produced and stored domestically, we can add that to our portfolio of self-reliance, a portfolio that, sadly, has been neglected by this and successive governments.

On the issue of self-sufficiency at the micro level of communities and households, there are households throughout the country that could take the pressure off the grid if they could only gain access to the national retrofit scheme. The Government itself has admitted there are cohorts of households that are left out of this scheme, such as old stone buildings, which are across County Tipperary. Communities can also benefit from wealth that is generated from community-owned solar and wind projects. Money that is accrued through this method is more likely to be retained, recirculated and reinvested within the community, helping it to stimulate local economies and social development, all the while cutting carbon emissions.

Transport features heavily in this motion. I have long been campaigning for better use of the train network than we currently see in Tipperary, for example. Simple things like timetable changes would actually be cost beneficial, would link regions, facilitate workers and would cut down on emissions. However, any change here is slow and unimaginative. Delays in this area and in the area of offshore wind, coupled with the slowness of imposing a windfall tax on energy companies and a poor retrofit scheme that is holding us back, are just a few things that must be addressed to allow us increase self-sufficiency.

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