Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this subject. I apologise for my absence over the past number of days. The process of Committee Stage of the Finance (No. 2) Bill took priority over dealing with many of the issues that have been referred to by speakers in the House.

This is an important issue. We have responsibilities and obligations, and we do reasonably well in achieving the targets despite the fact that we are lectured from time to time by various people who feel they will not be affected by the outcome. Everybody will be affected by the outcome and cost of putting in place the measures that everybody else directs somebody else to undertake.

I want to speak about a very simple issue, namely, reducing our dependence on energy and emissions and co-ordinating the programme in such a way as to make it acceptable to the people who elect us, whoever they may be, in urban or rural Ireland. There is a theory in some sectors that this is something that rural Ireland is responsible and needs to be condemned for. It is not. There is a theory that if we abolished all agricultural production and imported all of our food, vegetables and so on, we would solve the problem. We would not. The answer is that we are all responsible and all have to do our bit.

There is growing evidence that fatigue is beginning to develop among the population that we all represent. That fatigue is coming from the worry and fear about the ever-increasing costs imposed on individual households who believe they cannot do or pay any more and are doing the best they can.

A couple of years ago, I tried to set an example and changed from a back boiler heating system in my house to a wood-burning stove. It reduced costs and dependence on fossil fuels by about 60%. However, it was deemed that was ill-advised and the particulates that were emitting from the chimney stack smoke were harmful. That happened to come at a very unfortunate time. I had already spent the money at that stage.

I found that the biggest single contribution to heat and energy conservation in the home was triple-glazed windows. The thermal barrier of two inches is more effective than anything else. We have studied them all. It is much more effective, accessible and cost-effective than anything else we can do. So noticeable is the change that in rooms that did not have triple-glazed windows I can notice a difference between the back and front of the house. There is a huge difference.

The public now needs to know that we can move ahead on achieving some milestone in the course of the litany of issues that we have to deal with, and do so quickly and effectively and make our contribution to a reduction in dependence on fossil fuels. That is understandable.

I have studied a number of cases. There are examples over the past year of extraordinary electricity bills for people who change their systems. Some seem to work better than others, and I do not know why. However, I know that electricity is a feature of running air pumps and so on. That requires the total insulation of the house to the extent that it becomes airtight. I am not so sure about the safety of that. An airtight cylinder can be very dangerous. The experts will tell me it is all being catered for. I do not care whether it is being catered for; I am not satisfied with it. I have a reasonable knowledge of how it works. I again emphasise that there needs to be some special attention paid to ensuring that the stages that we follow are more concentrated on achieving the first, second, third or fourth items that are major contributors to energy and heat conservation, a reduction in emissions, etc.

The use of electric cars is useful. I have not got to that stage yet, but I am at the stage of at least reducing the capacity of a car to emit carbon. I have done that so far. It is a contribution. We will have to make a contribution. That is a fact.

Alternatively, we can decide to close down the beef, dairy and cereal industries and everything else. Instead, we can die of starvation. We will insure against the cold and not have to provide any air conditioning because it will be too expensive to run and so on, but we can die of starvation. That is not an option. If we think we can exist without a viable agrifood sector in this country, we are wrong. That is the wrong conclusion, and it is wrong to sell that to the people. We should not fall back on that because it is the easy option whereby only some of us have to do anything. Those of us who have to carry the burden in that area are those involved in the agrifood production sector. I would strongly advise that we avoid the day where we depend on a ship coming from South America or somewhere further afield, which will obviously come underwater without any emissions at all, and wait before we can open milk bottles in the morning or whatever the case may be and get food that way. That is not an option.

Let us not forget that the European Union, when it was the European Economic Community, was started to ensure that we could avoid food scarcity in the aftermath of the Second World War. There were good reasons for that. I am not suggesting that I know everything about this, but I know as much as a lot of other people. I know that from practical efforts to try to address the issue we will have to address.

I refer to the theory that urban Ireland can be protected and stand aloof from this whole situation. It cannot because the problem is that rural Ireland will survive. It will be self-sufficient in respect of food and food production, but unfortunately urban Ireland will not be and will have to depend on food coming from somewhere. Therefore, we need to be self-sufficient. We need to ensure we are able to continue with the food production sector similar to the way in which it rose to the challenge of the economic crash. Three areas contributed hugely to that recovery. Otherwise we would still be in hock to the last.

I strongly dispute the suggestion that one or other group was responsible for the economic crash. Several people and entities had responsibility for that. Everybody wanted to blame everybody else when it was all over, but the fact of the matter is that there is no use involving ourselves in the blame game. We have to get involved in the production of the means and methodology to ensure that we do not have a repetition of what happened.

In 2006, I was a member of a useful committee, as was the Minister, that arrived at conclusions. Unfortunately, some people did not agree with the findings.

Unfortunately, there was a huge campaign against various methods for the production of alternative energy, like wind turbines. There was a national campaign against them, to such an extent that it faltered. It faltered at a time when it was vital that this country would get in a position where it could replace dependency on fossil fuels to a huge extent. I did not hear anybody from urban or rural Ireland or anywhere else stepping up, except the people who had their eyes focused correctly on the future and who said they had to try and do this because it would give a certain amount of independence and that we would gain a certain amount of more independence by supporting these proposals. I think that was the right thing to do, and that still remains an option available to us. I think we can achieve a great deal of improvement in that area.

This is my last point. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity. I could speak for a lot longer on this subject because I was involved in a huge protest around that particular time in relation to energy alleviating measures that I felt were the better for the country. While I do not attempt to pretend to know everything I know a little bit about it and a little bit about the workings of the committee way back in 2006, and the recognition that it was deemed at the time – it is still valid and the points made are valid - to have a vital contribution to make to the energy sector, the alleviation of dependency on fossil fuels, the reduction in harmful emissions and a whole lot of other things. It is not a question of solving all the problems together, it is a question of progress, of starting with what is attainable and accepting the progress.

The last point I want to make is simply that we have done a reasonably good job. We are achieving targets. We have gone a long way. I remember the days when a bus took off on O'Connell Street and there was a cloud of smoke to such an extent that you could not see the surrounding area for about 15 minutes afterwards. There were cars at that time with massive emissions. If you travelled at more than 60 mph and you looked in the mirror there was a huge amount of smoke. You did not have to go to a garage to find out what the emissions were like, they were visible for everybody to see. That has gone to a significant extent. We must acknowledge the progress we have made and stop threatening ourselves and beating ourselves up and attempt to improve the situation we have on a step-by-step basis. I am sorry for overstepping my time.

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