Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I second the motion. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, to the House and congratulate him, the Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, their officials and all the stakeholders on putting together the Green Paper. Having had an opportunity to look over the debate which took place in the other House yesterday, I will not say it is long overdue. We all obviously know that, as the Taoiseach stated, there is almost no other policy area which is so basic and fundamental to our success in terms of sustainable growth.

I do want to be repetitive either. Many Senators will go through the various aspects of the Green Paper. It is a significantly aspirational document and I assume the reason for that is to stimulate debate over the next two months to get in the widest range of innovative and productive ideas so that the Government can put together the White Paper and come up with the appropriate actions which will make the difference.

Former US President Bill Clinton stated:

We will never get the world to deal with a problem which is over the horizon, even if it's just a few years over the horizon, unless we can prove we can do it with productive investments that incidentally create jobs, improve national security of every country involved, and save the environment.

In the context of this issue, there can be no truer statement. As long as one can say that it will never happen to us or it will happen to everybody else, that it will happen so far in the future, or that it will not affect me, my children, grandchildren or great grandchildren, one is likely to suggest not dealing with it and to hope someone is looking into it. Unfortunately, nobody has looked into it and now we need to do so quickly.

The most important part of that statement is that it strongly suggests we must ensure that people profit from it in the shorter term, and there is nothing wrong with that. Let us call it incentivisation. In the smallest possible way, we have made some slight inroads in that regard through the greener homes scheme. We need to start looking at the greener homes scheme to the power of infinity and over a much wider range of activities. The scheme is good in terms of the wood pellets, solar panelling, etc., but it is not essential anywhere. Let us make it easier for people. Let us provide the scheme through tax credits or through cash payments by which we can get people to engage actively in this. Let us come up with a cross-departmental approach so that we can legislate in the building regulations, for example, to provide that houses contain all these.

The area of transport is the one where we could take steps quickly. As the House will be aware, since 1990 there has been an increase of approximately 65% in car ownership. I gather from a recent press release of Sustainable Energy Ireland that transport is responsible for 41% of our primary energy demand and for 33% of our CO2 emissions. While one third of our CO2 emissions are in this area, in real terms we can take action through providing incentives for the likes of hybrid cars. I note that the car of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, is a hybrid that operates with diesel and battery power. Four cars in the ministerial fleet are hybrids. They all should be. Let us provide an incentive to the public, whether through road tax reductions or otherwise, so that they are proactive in this area.

I am indifferent as to the fuel on which my car runs and, of course, I need my car. I would be delighted to make such a move. If these were more readily available and if there were an incentive, perhaps we could get members of the public to change over quickly. Given that cars are responsible for one third of our emissions and 41% of primary fuel demand relates to transport, substantial gains could be made if the focus was put on this issue.

It is clear, whatever strategy emerges in the White Paper in two months, the Government will have to be radical in its approach. The bar needs to be set higher than 30% of energy to come from alternative sources by 2020. If we dream, let us dream that little bit bigger and push the boat out a little bit more. Last Saturday, as I was driving and burning fuel, I listened to Marian Finucane's interview with Richard Branson on radio. He is investing €1.5 billion of his resources in the research and development of alternative fuel technologies. I browsed the Internet earlier regarding his proposals but I could not obtain much detail.

However, the Government should look into this. Richard Branson is meeting airline representatives and so on. I laughed when I heard his proposal to tow aircraft from the terminal to the runway to save fuel and to have airplanes begin their descent into airports 15 minutes earlier. Similarly, we all would have laughed 20 years ago at proposals for tidal or wind energy.

I would not be true to Tipp O'Neill's maxim that all politics is local and fail to mention the gas network. I have a diagram of the gas network and the north west is highlighted in yellow because there is no gas provision in the region. Under the Gas Acts, Bord Gáis has no intention of bringing gas to this area.