Brendan Daly (Fianna Fail)

A measure was taken to deal with it. Certain measures need to be taken now to deal with this, but we should not lose the run of ourselves. There needs to be a certain balance and the dire predictions about global warming are disputed by others. It is a bit like going to the Supreme Court. One will find an equally valid argument put forward by other experts that there is no serious problem and if a certain amount is done, the worst effects can be averted.

There are certain controls over what the Minister can do with the funds in Section 3. I have not studied the Bill in great detail, because we have seen it only recently. There was a proposal a few years ago for a wave station in Kilkee. A licence was granted to connect it to the national grid and a company was interested in doing it, but due to a lack of £1 million, a decision was made on whether it was a research and development project or an economic project. As there were no funds in the research and development fund, the project collapsed. This was an internationally recognised company that had located a site, had done research work with the University of Limerick and had identified the prospects of getting this wave station put in place. It had obtained a licence from the ESB to connect to the national grid. The issue that arose when EU funding was being decided was whether it was an economical proposition to build the station, or whether it was a research and development project. While money existed in the economic fund, there was no money in the research and development fund. It collapsed for lack of money.

In such a situation, can the Minister draw down the necessary funding to put that station in place? Another company from Scotland was involved, but is no longer interested as it went off and did it somewhere else. I presume it received funding under EU regulations. Due to the technicalities that arose here, we lost that project. From what I can see at present, these wave stations can generate a great amount of electricity. Can the wave station be put back in place with funding from this fund? If it cannot be done, then we need to have an amendment to that section.

Clean coal technology has worked in Europe. A huge investment has been made by the German and French authorities, as well as the British to some extent. The British are building large coal burning stations in the knowledge that clean coal technology, which is expensive, will be coming into play as there is a plentiful supply of coal. If there were a proposal to operate clean coal technology in this country, for which coal supplies would have to come in from abroad, could funding be drawn down from this fund to deal with that? In that situation, the Minister might go a different way about meeting some of the requirements raised.

It is important to raise these issues when we are putting down the framework for a number of years. It is important that we do not find in a year's time that we are losing a viable project to Scotland or elsewhere due to technicalities, as has previously happened. We should be able to deal with that under this fund and get such projects underway.

Work was done at the Marine Institute in Galway to identify a site for a wave station. I am particularly interested in wave power because I am surrounded by enormous waves which could drive all of Europe if it could be properly harnessed. It seems to me to be an opportune time to raise these issues. I hope the Minister can deal with them now or on Committee Stage.