Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)

Ba mhaith liom caint inniu faoi rud éigin atá i mbéal an phobail faoi láthair, an issue that is really crucial to Ireland's climate ambitions and something I have really championed, that is, private wire legislation. It is stated in the programme for Government that such legislation will be expedited. We all support that programme for Government but this is not being done fast enough. Countries like Denmark and the UK have moved ahead while Ireland still has gigawatts of renewable energy waiting for connection. I have spoken to multiple people with solar farms or wind farms who have waited periods of 18 months or nearly two years for EirGrid and the ESB to connect those facilities to the grid. This is not acceptable. This delay will cost us billions. The Gallery is full of members of the public who, through their taxes, will face the fines levied on the country if we do not reach our EU targets. When I qualified for my degree, I asked my professor what is the smallest thing we could do that would have the biggest output. He said it is private wire legislation.

In January, I gave a Bill to the OPLA in which I proposed two modest interim measures. These involved changing section 37 of the 1999 Act. We need to allow renewable projects to use private wires to connect to the grid. It is not fair. According to EirGrid's transmission development plan of 2012, there is a further 13.3 GW of wind-generated energy and 9.5 GW of energy generated in other ways in the queue of applications. The CRU's recent announcement regarding data centres will probably mean that data centres will be built along the M50, where fibre connectivity is good. However, it is important that thermal power generation is only used as a rare back-up and that excess wind power on the grid is used to charge the large battery banks in the winter, when solar generation is low.

We have to be honest. We saw the figures recently published by the EPA. The report shows that if the plans are fully implemented, which I doubt they will be, we will only deliver a maximum emissions reduction of 22% by 2030.

We have a huge chance now, before the summer recess, to bring in private wire legislation, and I urge this Government to do so.

On another point, we should invest hundreds of millions right now into our ports. I know €90 million went into Cork Port, but we need to be putting hundreds of millions into it because the giant vessels that will be going into these ports to create our ORE development will not fit in the port as it is. We can invest hundreds of millions right now which will save us tens of billions in the future.

I urge this Government to do that, and I would like the current update on private wire legislation.

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