Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

It is clear that our current environmental standards are not fit for purpose. The Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 is simply not fit for purpose when it comes to granting licences, amending licences and a whole range of work that needs to be done in that respect. It is causing huge delays in building our infrastructure to meet our energy needs and expansion of businesses, the expansion of our housing and so on. We have huge problems, with delay after delay. Many of these delays are because of the high level of bureaucracy in all aspects of the engagement people have with the State, but particularly when it comes to licences relating to the EPA and environmental standards. Intensive agriculture, such as poultry and pig production, requires EPA licences as well. When it comes to renewing those licences, if there are small expansions involved there are huge problems. I think the Minister acknowledged that in his speech earlier.

We have targets for renewable energy across the country and we are well behind on all those targets. That is partly due to delays in granting EPA licences but also due to Government mismanagement for years with regard to how we will roll out the critical infrastructure we need. The reality is that we have a target of 80% renewable energy by 2030 and we are currently nowhere near that. I do not think anyone looking at it could possibly expect that we will ever reach it, in light of the way it is happening at the moment. We need offshore and onshore wind turbine projects started if we are going to reach these targets. I suggest that is not going to happen because of the Government's ineptitude and failure to meet its obligations. As regards servicing these turbines, even when they are put offshore, we will have issues in respect of our ports and their ability to provide the services when we do get that far.

We have huge problems in respect of our infrastructure. We are reliant on importing energy as the Government fails to develop our own energy independence. This has resulted in Ireland's consumers paying the highest energy prices in the European Union. With every report we see, we talk about the cost of living. One of the key aspects of the cost of living is the cost of energy, not just for the householder or the small business or whatever in the electricity they have to purchase, but also for the cost of the food and everything else they get because the energy inputs into all those products have gone up and up and continue to go up.

The aim of this Bill is to speed up the EPA licences with statutory timelines of 26 and 52 weeks. This is obviously a welcome change to the current position, where people can wait up to two years. We welcome that and we see that there has to be development, much more speed and much more urgency put into this. There are concerns, however, with such transparency and public consultation around all this, that we need to see the process sped up. We also need to ensure that we have sufficient time for public engagement, that the whole process is transparent and that we know where we stand at the end of the day. We do not want a situation where we take a problem and turn it on its head and it becomes a free-for-all. That cannot happen either, so we have to have a level of balance brought into all this. That is critical to it.

When it comes to environmental impact assessment exemptions, we need to know what those exemptions are, what an exemption means and what the definition of that is. We also need to understand, where these decisions are going to be made, what is exceptional and what is not exceptional and what the definition of that is. All those things need to be teased out in a practical way. I understand that when it comes to the committee etc., there will be work done there and other members will have an input into it. I hope we will get in experts who will also have an input into it. Unfortunately, however, having been here a while, my experience has been that very often committees can come up with very sensible recommendations but Ministers and those around them seldom listen to very sensible recommendations and just bull ahead with what they were going to do in the first place. We certainly hope that is not the situation with regard to this legislation.

Parts of the Bill are very vague, such as partial licensing and emergency licensing, which could be open to abuse in order to fast-track projects without proper environmental scrutiny. The country needs to do these things faster at the same time as the planning process needs to be sped up. It is also important that we have robust safeguards in place to protect fair public participation and transparency and the environmental standards that we need to keep in place. Environmental standards are very important, particularly with regard to our biggest industry in this country, which is our agriculture industry. We produce an enormous amount of food. We export that food to every country around the world, particularly across the European Union, and the standards we have here are very important. It is because of them that we have the top-shelf products in many places we go. We need to ensure we hold those standards. It is vital that happens.

Sinn Féin wants to see the development of critical infrastructure to ensure we are less reliant on imported energy from fossil fuels and to help to meet our climate targets in relation to renewable energy. Across the county, we need to ensure these things can be done in a balanced way. That is why this legislation is so important. I hope that when it is time for the Bill to get to Committee and Report Stages, the Minister and the Department will take on board sensible and proper ideas and positions put forward by the experts in the field and by the people on the committee.

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