Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I second the amendment.

This debate on the issue of renewable energy is welcome because there are clear challenges that lie before us as a country and as individuals if we are to reach our targets as a member state of the EU. It is widely known that all member states have signed up to a target of a 20% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and have also pledged to increase their use of renewable energy resources. This is in itself a reasonable target, but to achieve that on the ground will take serious effort across many State agencies and bodies and also by the Government.

Ireland is an island nation and we are in a vulnerable position geographically with regard to energy resources. We are very dependent on oil, gas and other fossil fuels, and our indigenous resources are quite limited. It is important that we develop a clear strategy of enhancing our use of renewable energy resources, creating indigenous opportunities across a wide range of technologies. This will need to happen at many different levels. Starting from the ground up, which is a good idea, some improvements have been made in this field. Grants are available from Sustainable Energy Ireland for individual households to install renewable energy-based systems. I acknowledge the role of SEI in creating an awareness of energy efficiency and renewable technologies among the general public. These technologies play an important role and I would like to see full support for them. I compliment SEI in this regard, although it needs more resources if it is to deliver what it set out to achieve.

I have geothermal heating in my own house and I was one of the pioneers of the technology in my own area. I installed it before there were any grants for it. I missed the grant by a year and I was a bit disappointed. As I said at the time, the pioneers often suffer as they are the people who take the risk and install the technologies but do not receive any grant aid. There were quite a few around at that time. Now the grant is there and people are luckily benefiting from it.

Geothermal technology should be promoted at every opportunity, especially in rural areas. The installation of small wind turbines for individual houses has also been facilitated, which is welcome. The planning restrictions in this regard have been removed. There are not many around at the moment but over time we may start to see more of them. I was in Northern Ireland recently and I saw quite a few at the back of houses. In addition, we see more and more solar panels in housing estates, which I welcome. These advances are at the level of individual households. Supports are continuously needed at that level.

I mentioned the role of Sustainable Energy Ireland, but we must also consider local authorities. This area is relatively new to many local authorities and they need to engage more with the promotion of renewable technologies in new developments. There are some pilot schemes up and running around the country and they have been successful, but this now needs to be rolled out into housing developments in all local authority areas. There is now a planning condition that some element of renewable energy use be included in all new developments, including geothermal or solar energy.

We must not forget the potential of hydroelectric power. I come from a small town in County Waterford, Portlaw, where there were once two water wheels at the old cotton mill site on the River Clodiagh with a generation capacity of more than 500 KW. Unfortunately, they have long since gone. I was involved in the campaign to retain the old mill, but it was bypassed by the fisheries board to allow salmon up the river. Thus, rather than maintaining a real renewable resource on our doorstep, we took the easy option and dug a big channel around it. A total of 500 KW of capacity was dug away.

The dispute went to An Bord Pleanála and the locals lost the campaign. We threw away some great renewable resources on our own doorstep, which is something I hate to see. However, it is never too late. We can always revisit these projects and reinstall hydroelectric power on smaller rivers and streams. There is no reason that cannot be done. I call on the Government to consider this as an opportunity for local authorities and communities to harness the power in local streams and rivers. I ask also that clear strategies and plans be developed by local authorities with regard to renewable energies so that they can work at the coalface in promoting the various schemes of which communities could take advantage.

We could talk about this all day but real challenges lie ahead. Ireland must produce 16% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 and this will present challenges to industry, the transport sector and the electricity market. There are roles for the various agencies involved in this. There are planning and grid access difficulties attached to onshore renewable wind energy sources and a strategy should be adopted by all local authorities to facilitate connection where possible. There should also be consultation with the ESB and EirGrid to facilitate ease of connection for renewable resources. Offshore wind farms face difficulties including foreshore licences, connection to the grid — they must get on the foreshore first and then get proper access to the grid. There are clear challenges here.

I am aware that huge research has gone into wave and tidal power. I was lucky enough to visit the Marine Institute in Galway in recent months and saw, first-hand, two research projects on wave power. One is Wavebob and I forget the name of the other but each prototype can generate 20 KW of power. They are relatively small, about the size of a small boat, and the plan is that over time they could increase output. There will be other challenges then, such as connecting their generation capacity to the main grid.

There are clear challenges for all of us and the Government is talking a great deal about renewable energy at the moment. It is good that this is in its mind set but we are not reaching the targets at the rate we should and there are ways we could engage more with individuals, local authorities and research agencies to drive the renewable resources that are on our doorstep. All debates on this matter in the House are welcome and I feel we must work to promote renewable energy technology and indigenous resources as much as possible. I did not get to talk about bio-fuels, unfortunately. I mention this area because there are opportunities and challenges there. As we know with food security and food production, if we put all our eggs in one basket regarding bio-fuels we could fail. Bio-fuels need further research before we go down that road.