Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House and welcome this debate. While some aspects of this issue may be rocket science, others are not. One that is not concerns driving into the city on any of the main highways on the north side — the N1, N2 or N3. For anybody who comes to the city on these routes, there is no place for them to park and ride and use public transport. The car parks of pubs along the N2 are filled each morning, not with people who are in drinking, but by the cars of people who have nowhere to park and ride. This is a simple area that could be addressed and should be considered because it would have an immediate impact.

I wish to re-emphasise the point made by Senator O'Malley. The decision by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government on the building regulations on insulation, is the most progressive made in this area since I entered the Seanad. Senators are well aware that I and former Senator, Deputy Brian Hayes, have pushed this issue for years. I contend that since 1998 we have built over 250,000 sub-standard insulated houses despite being well aware they did not meet the regulations.The Government invented a new form of measuring heat loss through the roof when the rest of the world measured it on the basis of the amount of energy required to heat a cubic metre of house space annually. I welcome the fact that the Minister, Deputy Gormley, has now introduced that system.

I have also been seeking the introduction of smart meters. I was pleased to hear the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources say during the week that if people have wind generators or micro-generators at home they can feed surplus energy back into the grid and be paid for it, however small the amount.

On a number of occasions recently, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has raised the question of waste-derived fuel and variations of it. Effectively, this is a basic scientific idea but it is not rocket science. It captures methane from landfill waste. There is a more progressive method of creating waste-derived fuel, which is being developed at the University of Limerick. A company currently investing in this method is building such plants for local authorities in England, which will involve 100 million tonnes of waste annually. It could replace incineration here were we to opt for it.

Triple glazing should also be grant aided. Senator Burke referred earlier to the need for such grants and he is right. There are no grants for wind generators on a house but I do not know why. I have spoken to Sustainable Energy Ireland about this matter but no one can give me an answer. There is no reason for not providing such grants.

A year ago, I proposed to the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government that as well as changing the building regulations, which has now been done, as a second step, every new house should be required to have a wind generator or solar panels. There are many other things that could be done but that would be a simple measure. It has been done in other parts of the world.

We also need to start constructing railways. Many people in Ireland believe that railways are somewhat outdated, old-fashioned and Victorian things. Recently, I drove from Barcelona in Spain to Perpignan in France where they are building a brand new TGV rail line which will cover that intercity route in one hour. They have already built a new TGV line on the eastern side of France. They are still building all the time while we are looking at renovating one rail line. We have been talking about bringing the railway line to Navan for the last 15 years. Two former Ministers for Finance have promised to do so but why is it not happening? What is the problem? We should just do it. It would take less time and space to construct than a road.

Every new motorway should have a railway track alongside it. While it may be too late, I would ask the Green Party to take this proposal on board, which I have been making for ten years. It is a simple thing to do and is undertaken in many countries around the world. The land is already there and such a line would take up little additional space, but it means that new trains could be run there.

We also need to discuss the issue of nuclear energy, although I am completely opposed to it. I listened earlier to Senator Walsh confirm that both he and I had similar views on these matters back in the late 1970s when those in favour tried to wreck his county.