David Norris (Independent)

I am delighted to have been called to speak immediately on coming into the House. I am especially glad the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is here because I have some suggestions, questions and prods to deliver directly to him. First, I welcome him to the House and say I am extremely glad a person of his capacity, commitment and political and ideological background is in his position. It is fortunate the Green Party has this significant role at this juncture.

I commend my good friend and colleague, Senator Feargal Quinn, on tabling this very important motion, which is seconded by Senator O'Toole. I lent my name to it because I believe in most of it. However, I have some reservations about the nuclear element although fission and fusion are relatively safe and are well down the list of recommendations. Senator Quinn has been very courageous in this area. He has, as I have, taken an interest in the area of nuclear energy. I cannot speak for Senator Quinn, but I had a long period of resistance to this idea. I believe the Green Party in Ireland perhaps still has, although the Green Party in England appears to have changed its mind.

I have not actually changed my mind. I have simply prised it a little further open. It is for that reason that Senator Quinn and I have a motion on this matter on the Order Paper. It proposes: "That Seanad Éireann requests the Government to establish as a matter of urgency an expert committee to examine in an impartial fashion the feasibility, benefits and potential hazards of nuclear energy generation." That is the first step. We must face this issue because of the pollutant nature of fossil fuel-based generating systems. We must establish the facts. It was following a meeting with two friends of mine who are involved in the nuclear area that I agreed to table that motion. I am not quite as supportive as Senator Quinn. I would not be gung ho for nuclear energy but to behave responsibly, we must establish the facts.

A number of people, especially on the Opposition benches and in the Green component of the Government but most particularly my colleagues, Senators Bacik, O'Toole and Quinn, have been pushing for the use of natural energy sources for a number of years. There are, of course, problems. The Minister will have seen a newspaper report in recent days of a very exciting development, launched in the presence of Ms Angela Merkel, where the difficulties of wind generation and the fluctuation of supply appear to have been solved by a capacity to store energy and bring it on stream when the wind drops, avoiding the sporadic pattern which is a major problem of wind generation and guaranteeing continuity of supply. We can learn from this.

The Minister spoke about the virtues of the electric car. I drove one outside this House about two weeks ago. It was a Mitsubishi produced by Mr. Joe Clarke of Westbrook Motors in Parnell Street, Dublin 1 in the north inner city. It was one of 11 cars which have been made, is valued at €1 million and I was allowed to drive it. It was a wonderful experience. One simply turned the key, there was no noise, no exhaust, the drive was very smooth and there was good acceleration. The technology probably needs to be tweaked because of the limited mileage the car can achieve but it is well on the way. Today, I received a report by the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security entitled Drive for Zero: Electric Vehicles are a Winning Proposition.

I principally wish to direct my pleas to the Minister about wave energy. We have a substantial natural resource, particularly on the Atlantic coast. It is estimated we could eventually supply all the energy needs of the island of Ireland from that one source and perhaps export energy. We have the natural ingredients. We have the resource, the research community, the appropriate policy, the incentives - with a feed-in-tariff for wave energy of 22 cent per kilowatt hour - and the technology developers. However, since the announcement of this Government strategy only €500,000 has been invested by the Government. That is not enough and it must be increased. That amount was made available to UCC. None of the developers themselves, who are the most exposed to financial uncertainty, received a single cent.

The Minister has said he sees the emergence of a local wave energy industry as being akin to the establishment of the first portakabin by Intel in Leixlip. If that is the case and there is job potential, should he not be supplying similar levels of support? This is not happening. It is all the more important because of the retention of intellectual property, profits and expertise in Ireland. The European Commission quotes ten to 20 jobs per megawatt installed ocean energy capacity. A national target of 500 megawatts should produce 10,000 jobs. Wave energy is a very worthwhile investment. I believe the Minister's heart is in the right place. I hope he can use this debate and an independent contribution like mine to strengthen his hand at Cabinet and to ensure the Government makes this investment.

Wavebob, the company in which I am interested, has a joint venture with Vattenfall, a Swedish company, to develop wave farms off the west coast of Ireland. This is a clear vote of confidence by the international community, but they need further support. In the United States under President Obama's stimulus package, $250 million will be made available to support ocean energy development. What are we doing? We are in danger of being caught if the Scottish authorities facilitate planning permissions and the US supplies the money. We do not want to be outmanoeuvred by the Scottish, as we were in the whiskey trade.

Matthew Simmons wrote Twilight in the Desert, with which I am sure the Minister is familiar. He was one of the first proponents of peak oil theory and called such energy sources the Holy Grail for the future of energy. We are trying to grow a business. At the moment the wave company to which I refer gets most of its support and finance from Sweden. That must stop. One of the directors of the company is a personal friend of mine and I put that on the table. I have no personal investment in any of this. I refer to someone I have known for many years and whom I respect, namely, Mr. William Dick. Even with personal guarantees, these people cannot squeeze money out of the banks.

Science Foundation Ireland awards hundreds of millions of euro for research and design but these people cannot get any of it because they work as a small, private industry. Tax relief on research and design is meaningless in the case of this company. SFI funds flow to third level institutions, but little goes to research. The company to which I refer has a bunch of very bright people doing seriously advanced work. All those involved are graduates, post-doctorate researchers and so on. It has talent from throughout the world; some seven nationalities are represented. It is relatively easy to get funding from Enterprise Ireland for collaborative research with a university. The company has two leading scientists in training with funding totalling approximately €700,000, but the universities have a different approach. They take time and tend to publish commercially sensitive material.

Will the Minister examine this? The Minister should invest in wave energy, about which he spoke so prophetically. When I use the term "invest", I do not mean €500 million, but substantially more than that.