Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I will not contradict the Minister and I am glad to hear it. That has been suggested to me, but I have not yet seen the Bill. I appreciate the Minister's commitment. I am saying people outside the Green Party also believe this is a really great idea and that it should be pursued. I am sure the Minister would prefer if I did not mention that the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security has produced an all-party foreshore Bill that does not threaten the Government in any way. I ask the Minister to accept that legislation and not to listen to the officials in his Department who are trying to slow him down on it. Let them make changes on Committee Stage or the Minister could take charge of the Bill himself and bring it through. It can be his Bill; it does not need to be anybody else's.

Earlier I heard reference to the various developments in Mayo. I met representatives of the local authority in Mayo who outlined their plans for the 500 MW wind farm at Bellacorick. They outlined their plans for bringing ashore wave energy and their plans on wind energy in the area. They have problems with planning legislation. The Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act should be extended as quickly as possible to deal with these issues. The French Government manages to get around all the rules. In the past two weeks it has entered an agreement with Renault for the development of car batteries, which will be properly assessed for all this work.

Before the Minister goes, I wish to make one quick comment to him. In 1927 when we needed considerable help to develop electricity, the company that did the work on it was Siemens. I do not know whether the Minister has seen the recently completed study on sustainable urban infrastructure for Dublin commissioned by Siemens. It makes fascinating reading and outlines the levers that could be put in place. The research carried out independently by a group in University College Dublin indicated the levers that could be used to reduce the carbon emissions from Dublin. It lists them one after the other and while the issue of bio-fuels is lower down the list, it is in there. I am making the point that certain other things are more important. I do not want to delay the Minister. I ask him to recognise the issues in that independent research study. It shows the things that can be done and would pay for themselves. The study was completed from a commercial point of view and outlines what it would cost in investment and when it would pay back. For each of these levers it outlines what it would save in millions of tonnes of carbon per year and how many years it would take to pay back. This is what we need to do. I thank the Minister for his attention on that.

I also welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Curran. Before he came in I mentioned something in his constituency regarding the geothermal district heating project in his area. I ask the Minister of State to kick out around him to ensure it is done. This will allow us to lead in Europe. I will return to the study commissioned by Siemens.

We have the most harvestable wave energy in Europe off the north Mayo coast, where the average wave height over the year is 2.5 m. We can now simply deal with these things. I heard people here speak enthusiastically about the Spirit of Ireland project. There is nothing wrong with that project. It is not very efficient; it is only approximately 70% efficient to pump water up a hill and get it down again as is done in Turlough Hill, but it is a project that could work. In the meantime Deputy Coveney and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security have done considerable work on electric cars as storage as opposed to all the other possibilities and while I am glad to see the Minister making progress in that direction, more needs to be done.

I said Renault has a special deal with the French Government and is first into the market on this issue. We could be doing that. We were first in the market for wave energy until approximately five or six years ago when we were overtaken by Scotland which now has wave energy connected to the grid in north-west Scotland. There are things that we are not doing.

The study funded by Siemens and carried out by a number of academics in UCD outlined a list of carbon abatement levers. I do not have time to go into these in detail; I would like to have a longer debate on it. Its top placed item, renewable energy generation, would save 1.4 million tonnes of carbon per year in the Dublin area. It is followed by building retrofitting, basically various forms of insulation; Transport 21, the Government's plan to improve public transport; modified petrol cars; a city district heating scheme, which is what is going on in the constituency of the Minister of State; modified diesel cars; and various other items. Vehicular bio-fuels appears ninth on the list, which is not unimportant but in the Dublin area it would only save 100,000 tonnes of carbon as opposed to renewable energy generation, which would save 1.4 million tonnes of carbon. We need to look at these things. I met representatives of Siemens to discuss the report because I was greatly impressed by it.

What does the Government expect the price of oil to be in one year, two years and three years? At the moment some of the futures markets for next year are quoting $100 per barrel, which would make a significant difference. As we know it went higher than that before. If it went up to $200 per barrel, it would have a considerable impact on our plans. We need to move the matter forward. In addition we need to have a development particularly in photovoltaic solar panels, as opposed to water heating solar panels. A rich harvest in that area is also available in Ireland.

We are being hit by information coming from all sides. I am impressed by this academic study outlining the changes that would need to be made for this to work in Dublin. It has everything. It deals with the environmentalists, the investor and commercial and planning issues. It deals with the cost of investment, the period of payoff and the savings in carbon. All we need to do is compare that with what we will need to pay Europe in fines for not reducing emissions.

That brings me neatly to the importance of a climate change Bill - Senator Boyle will be surprised I have not mentioned it so far. I am prepared to second his climate change Bill if he is prepared to publish one quickly enough. If not, he might second mine, which might be somewhat more difficult. A climate change Bill needs to outline what we will do in the following years. We should benchmark the changes we need to make. I have only just touched on the issue. We need a business plan based on the various prices oil could reach in the next three or four years. I do not pick Dublin for any reason except that it is an urban area and most of the carbon emissions come from urban areas. It does not take from the need to deal with agricultural and other issues outside urban areas. This deals with issues. I recall Senator Butler speaking in very supportive terms of the Spirit of Ireland project in recent times. However, here is an issue for Dublin. It may not be as sexy as the Spirit of Ireland project which had everybody orgasmic about how important it was. While I agree it was important, it is not the most important because it did not deal with storage in an efficient manner, but it could be done. In order to get it going, first the wind farms need to be built. We have problems in that regard. Everybody is in favour of wind farms until somebody in the local community objects. What is going on is ridiculous. There are people who claim to be environmentalists who are not environmentalists at all. They hide behind the theory of environmentalists. The environment is far less important to them than the intrusion on them of the sight of a wind farm on the top of a hill.