Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I am delighted to have the privilege of seconding the Bill. I congratulate my colleague, Senator Ivana Bacik, for introducing this important legislation. I also congratulate her on breaking a long-standing rule of the Independent benches by finishing on time. I must explain to her that we do not do so.

It is a pleasure to welcome the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, to the House. He knows it is heartfelt. He and I spent many years discussing, arguing and cogitating on these matters. Senator Bacik dealt closely with the business of the Bill and I will widen the debate. As the Minister is present, it is worthwhile examining what the strategies might include. An important aspect of the Bill is that it ties us in. It reminds me of the Minister's speech during the general election campaign when he discussed five stages and year-by-year benchmarks. I like benchmarks and benchmarking is my thing. I will support the Minister all the way on this.

Six months ago in this House I made three requests. I asked that every house built in this country would be required to have a solar panel or another renewable energy source. I asked that we get rid of the daft system invented by the Department for measuring insulation and heat loss and come to the international and only worthwhile standard of measuring the kilowatt hours of energy required to heat a cubic metre of a house for one year. Last Saturday week, the Minister made a statement in Wicklow which included those two matters. If I do nothing else in politics, I feel this is important.

The third request I made ties in with the issue. Senator Bacik's Bill goes through various types of emissions of which the first listed is carbon and the second is methane. It is important to recognise that methane is 20 times as virulent, dangerous and damaging as carbon. Nonetheless, every landfill in the country shoves methane into the atmosphere at an extraordinary pace. We must do something about this.

The Minister and I never agreed on the matter of chemically dealing with waste. I do not know the answer to what is the best way to deal with it. Recently, I met a group which established a research centre at the University of Limerick. It has a completely closed way of dealing with waste with no emissions, olfactory or otherwise. It also captures methane. I was agog when I met those people approximately two weeks ago. I told them they must meet the Minister and I hope they contacted him. They told me they could build a plant for €30 million which would deal with 300 million tonnes per year. I heard that figure with regard to another matter in the Minister's constituency. This is a much better idea.

I raise these issues because in terms of the society we want to create, any community which takes full responsibility for looking after all its waste and energy needs should get a tax break. I stated this to the Minister's predecessor and he pooh-poohed the idea. I was born in west Kerry and examined how much it would cost there. I examined the amount of energy used for electricity on the peninsula during the course of a year. New unseen wind generators which produce 1.5 MW could produce enough energy and feed it into the grid. The Minister speaks about creative and exciting ideas. This is an exciting idea through which we would all gain. It is a Chinese bargain and everyone is a winner. It is the only way to do it.

I am aware energy is only related to the issue and his colleague will deal with it. Given technological advances, it is now easy to create microenergy such as microhydro-electric energy. If a wind generator is established in Newry or if one creates slightly more energy than one requires in one's house and it goes back into the grid, the utility pays one for it. This does not happen in the South. This could be done in the morning. It is a matter of one regulation.