Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No disrespect to the Minister of State, but I would like to think that the Minister, Deputy Ryan, would stay for a full debate in the Dáil. It is sad that every time he comes in he opens the debate, listens to the main parties and legs it before the real facts come before him. He does not like real facts. That is disappointing. I would appreciate if the Minister of State would pass on the message to him that it is important to listen to both sides of an argument.

I am not against offshore wind energy but have concerns for my fellow fishermen in Cork South-West who have asked me to relay the concerns there. Have they been properly consulted or will this be a diktat from the top telling them where they can and cannot fish in their own waters? The Government is talking about massive areas of water being designated and covered in concrete. I ask that that be addressed. We want to move forward together and make sure this works and there are no serious objections to it but if the Government railroads over a sector that depends on the water and on the Atlantic Ocean to provide food for our table and a living for themselves and does not consult that sector, there is something wrong somewhere. To date, they are not overjoyed about the consultation. There has been a little but not enough. The Government will have to improve in that area.

We have to look at the other side, which concerns the fuel resources we have, before this happens. I was listening to an expert two or three months ago. He was pushing hard for offshore renewables and wanted them. He felt he was right and maybe he is. There is no arguing about that. He was an expert. They asked him on the radio when he could guarantee a delivery. He tried to avoid answering and in the end said 2035 or 2040. If we are that far away, there are many issues that need to be resolved in the coming weeks in the Dáil. We do not want to discuss them but we want to talk about renewables. That is the Minister, Deputy Ryan, getting his tuppence ha’penny in as a Minister. Unfortunately, until then we will need some source of fuel and we are not looking at opportunities we could have. The Minister has shut the door.

There is no problem about importing it. There are many Deputies shouting and roaring against that but they are away in La-La land because most of them are driving diesel- and petrol-guzzling cars and vans. There will be no talk about that going home this evening. They do not want to walk home in case it rains or something. They are quite happy to use a vehicle but are shouting against fuels in here.

Last Friday the Minister refused a licence for drilling of oil and gas off the Cork coast. The result of that decision is Ireland will have to import energy from anywhere that will supply us, including dirty dictators. That is where we are importing it from. Instead of being able to stand on our own two feet and not have to look to dictators to provide us with fuel, we have turned off the tap once again and will be depending on dictators for decades to come. This will make our people poorer and make energy here more expensive. We will miss out on billions of euro in potential tax revenue and thousands of offshore jobs.

My mantra the whole time is that the least the Government could do is to make sure to bring these people on board so they would pay through taxes for renewable energies. Deputy Nolan is here, so I will give her the opportunity use the rest of the time.

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