John Crown (Independent)

I thank Senator Quinn, first for sharing his time with me, and second for making such a sensible, well-informed, non-hysterical, non-headline seeking, non-populism tickling set of recommendations for what we need to do. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, when I say I regret that the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, has left. I know the Minister of State will convey our opinions to him. On a previous occasion, I told the Minister he occupied the most important Ministry in the Government. He was flattered and surprised to hear that, but I believe he does.

I oppose the motion and the amendments because none of them goes far enough. We can forget all about political points scoring, procedural matters and constituency boundaries. There is no doubt in my mind that the three existential crises that will face our society and our civilisation in the years to come will be food, water and energy. It is that simple. The imperative to do something fundamental about energy policy is overawing on a global as well as a local basis. Our world population recently hit 7 billion and there is every prospect that it will continue to rise, with an ever-increasing percentage of that population employed in industries that are intensely carbon fuel dependent. There is no doubt, therefore, that we will see a massive and accelerated demand worldwide for carbon-based and other energy sources in the years to come.

We need to do something about this. We need to decrease the amount of carbon we burn. Even if one is sceptical about global warming - and while I am not sceptical I have some spurts of agnosticism about some aspects of it - the arguments for decreasing our dependence on carbon-based fuels are utterly overwhelming. In the first case, the stuff is running out. By definition, these are non-renewable fuel sources. They are all located within a relatively superficial distance of the surface of the earth and we are running out of them all. Even if we have a windfall of gas in Leitrim or oil in the Arctic or the Antarctic, they cannot last forever. At some stage this bank account will run dry, these family jewels will have to be sold and we will have to have other energy sources. It is critically important, if for no other reason, that we have a long-term policy to find those other sources.

The second issue is geopolitical. We are not blessed with the provenance of the oil and gas to which we have access. Consider the levels of civic government that exist in many of the places that produce most of the oil and gas. Most of our oil reserves are held by feudal theocrats, partially reconstructed Stalinist dictators and various unsavoury types. It is a very vulnerable supply.

The third issue is pure economics. For us to continue importing the bulk of our energy makes no sense because we cannot afford it. At this stage we do not have that many products to exchange for the energy we require. The change in energy policy has to be seismic and therefore, I oppose all these motions because none of them go anywhere near such a change. We need to be open-minded about all sources of energy and I am delighted that my colleague has broken the taboo of mentioning the N-word. I ask the Minister to please bring this suggestion to Cabinet. It must be recognised that after the Chernobyl disaster there was not a 1% increase in congenital malformations anywhere in the world, including Belarus. A total of 2% of all pregnancies result in a congenital malformation world-wide and this statistic stayed at 2% in Belarus. These are not crazy, right-wing, nuclear energy figures but rather these are WHO figures. The incidence of all cancers stayed the same, with the exception of one rare kind of cancer called thyroid cancer which was substantially increased, but rare, in children in the immediate region because of an uptake in the thyroid of radioactive isotopes.

A great deal of energy policy is being driven by scientifically ill-informed hysteria. As Senator Quinn said, we need to have a serious debate about all energy sources, including renewable sources, on our dependence on carbon and on the N-word - nuclear energy. The choice facing us is not between having a highly dangerous nuclear energy and an utterly safe alternative. I ask the Members to think for a second about all the people who, every day in the world, are blown up, burned, boiled, run down by trucks that are either carting oil, in the process of refining oil and I ask them to think for a second about the potential loss of life which will occur if we find ourselves geopolitically vulnerable to countries where warfare may break out because of oil supplies. We need to have a very serious, very mature, very rational, fact-based, non-emotional, scientific debate on all forms of energy, including nuclear energy. I cannot recommend any of these motions or amendments because they all skip and dance around the issue which is the need to seismically change the way we deal with energy policy.