Seanad debates

Tuesday, 27 January 2015

Broadband, Post Office Network and Energy White Paper: Statements

 

6:45 pm

Photo of John WhelanJohn Whelan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy White, to the House. I wish to make the best use of this time and use the opportunity to air topics of concern. Perhaps the Minister will take questions on the broad remit and extensive range of issues in his ministerial portfolio.

At the outset I commend the Minister for what is an inspired choice of securing the co-operation of Mr. Bobby Kerr to head up the post office network business development group. I met Mr. Kerr at the launch of the Mountmellick Development Association and later in the year at the National Ploughing Championships. He is an enthusiastic champion for the small business sector and for rural Ireland. I look forward to the proposals that will emanate from that group. I think that is the kind of openness we need to have. There are some interesting suggestions already coming from the floor of this Chamber.

I commend the Minister for his enthusiasm and commitment to the roll-out of high-speed broadband services across the regions. I may be excused for being cynical and sceptical about this because of the similar announcements by other Governments over many years. There have been so many false dawns in respect of rural and regional broadband services. It is no wonder that people are sceptical that it will ever happen.

It is curious at this stage that the State has to step up and intervene to ensure broadband services in communities in rural areas such as Ballyroan, where I am from, or Timahoe where the broadband service is appalling. Broadband is not being provided. Broadband service providers have not been in a position to provide the service and I look forward to the time when we can say that broadband for rural Ireland has been put to bed. I hope we will be able to say that has been achieved on the Minister's watch. I know there has been significant progress in the delivery of high-speed broadband services in second level schools. That has been a significant success. I have seen that in action. However, the speed of broadband in the homes and businesses is a bugbear, which puts rural areas at a distinct disadvantage in so many areas.

The network of post offices is a challenge. There has been a great deal of scaremongering on this issue in the past year, not least during the time of the local elections. Certain elements use the issue and try to suggest there will be wholesale closures of post offices. The post office is a linchpin in small towns and villages and is seen as a vital and integral service that holds the business in towns together.

In the past few years the village in which I live, Timahoe, County Laois, lost its post office. It was not due to any action on the part of the Government or An Post; the family that was providing the service and had done so well for decades - it was providing a tremendous service for the local community - was retiring and no one else was willing to take on the responsibility, workload and commitment required. It is more complex than just achieving the Government's policies.

I would like to devote the bulk of my time, like Senator Tony Mulcahy, to discussing energy policy, the most immediate and most vexed element of the Minister's portfolio. The first issue that jumps off the page at me is that of energy costs and prices, particularly for oil and gas. I echo Senator Ned O'Sullivan's sentiments and ask the Minister whether he has intervened to knock heads together on why the dramatic and drastic reductions in wholesale energy prices for oil and gas have not been passed on to consumers, businesses, farms and families. That is unacceptable. In the past, the minute oil prices went up, the increase was passed on at the pumps and when people were purchasing a refill of home heating oil. We challenge the conventional wisdom because it is not that long ago when energy economists were predicting that oil prices would be heading upwards towards $200 a barrel. No one would have believed us if we had said last year that oil prices would fall below $50 a barrell for Brent crude oil. That reduction has not been passed on in the cost of electricity and home heating oil or in the cost of fuel at petrol pumps. I am not sure what the point is in having an energy regulator that only observes and has no role in pricing. That marks a return to the regulation we witnessed in the banking and charity sectors. What is the point in having a regulator that is impotent and has no function or role other than in looking on and saying, "I cannot intervene; I can only look at the issue and ask." Either we have a regulator or we do not. If the regulator cannot regulate price, what is the point in having one? If the Minister must supplement the role and functions of the regulator in this regard, I ask him to do so because the consumer is entitled to benefit from the drastic reduction in energy prices, which we were told would not happen.

I must move on and in the final part of my contribution address a vexed and difficult issue, as we must grasp the nettle. Everyone wants to do something about climate change. Everyone is concerned about the polar bear, but it seems no one wants to help it when asked to make a commitment and an effort to change his or her lifestyle and practices. The answer is not to construct thousands of giant wind turbines and place them at every crossroads in the country and within 500 m of people's homes. I feel strongly about this issue, as this will not work; it cannot work and will never be acceptable. I, therefore, urge the Minister to use his influence at the Cabinet table to come forward with new planning guidelines and setback proposals, which he must bring forward jointly with his colleague, the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, and the rest of the Cabinet. We have had the discussion and all the consultation time we need. The consultation period concluded last February and we are now almost one year on, yet there is still no sign of the new guidelines.

Has the Minister put the nuclear option back on the table? It was mentioned in the media during the Christmas-new year period. I do not know if that was because things were too quiet. When I mentioned the matter to the Minister before, he laughed me out of court, but there are 60 nuclear power stations in France, meeting 75% of its energy needs. I would rather live close to a new generation nuclear plant than to one of these giant wind farms.

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