Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

These are controversial measures, but if we want to be serious about tackling this issue, we will have to make these decisions. It is not about assuming the taxpayer's pockets are ever deeper. Some of it is about intelligent policymaking and putting a price on things. Congestion pricing has been introduced successfully. However, these are not popular measures. That is why Senator Lombard is right when he talks about the importance of engagement. We have to get people to understand the ground has shifted on some of the things we tend to think we have a right to do. We have to rethink some things.

Plastics are a very important gateway to changing behaviour. They will probably not have a huge impact on our carbon output in and of themselves. Their merit is that they are light; therefore, the aggregate weight is not that much. However, they are a really important symbol to show people that they have to change the way they behave. We cannot dispose of plastic on a single-use basis when it takes six tonnes of carbon to produce one tonne of plastic. We have to rethink our use of these materials. It is a really important signal of the direction in which we will be going. We have made decisions to start consultation on significant changes in our use of plastic.

The issue of microgeneration and solar energy was raised by Senator Joe O'Reilly. They definitely have a future. We are committed to developing a microgeneration policy. We only support solar energy projects for domestic and farm use. In time we will offer a payback price to those selling solar power supplies to the grid. However, the order of priority in any of these areas is to improve building and insulation first and then to look at the energy system.Solar energy is used to modify and reduce one's dependence on the grid and then the surplus is sold to the grid. This is not about doing nothing about those first two steps and just hoping to sell power to the grid. That would be a very expensive way of generating power. Microgeneration is about helping to make people self-sufficient and become more energy conscious and careful about their community. The co-operative idea is good one. I do not want the idea to get out there, which some farmers would like to see, that this is a new enterprise where one can simply sell solar power from one's shed, which would be a new business. Solar energy must reduce one's dependence on energy and it then becomes a virtuous circle.

I wish to reassure Senator Humphreys about electric vehicles. Norway has 300,000 electric vehicles and 100,000 plug-in hybrids and that is the background to the 12,000 charging points in that country. The direction of travel here is that we will phase out grants for electric vehicles over time. Within three or four years, it will be a no-brainer to go for an electric vehicle rather than a diesel vehicle. It will be cheaper to run and, leaving taxes aside, it will be more efficient because the batteries will be able to provide for longer distances, will be more efficient and will be cheaper to buy. Diesel will become increasingly a thing of the past. That is why we have said there will be a ramp-up of electric vehicles. At the moment, 4% of new vehicles are electric and that will ramp up. If, by 2025, we have 180,000 electric vehicles on the road, that is still roughly 20% of purchases. It is only towards the end of the decade that we will see that 20% increase to 100% of the new cars going on the road being electric. By that time, a home charger will provide enough range for drivers and we will not have such a requirement for public chargers but we need to put in the public charger infrastructure to get the system off the ground. That is why we are doing what we are doing.

We will also require - by regulation as opposed to grant, to take up Senator Murnane O'Connor's point - anyone with 20 car parking spaces to provide a charger from 2025. It will not all be the taxpayer being asked to pay for this infrastructure. We must recognise that trying to persuade people to do the right thing will be a part of it.

There were many other points made and it would be unfair to try and summarise them or deal with them in turn. I thank Senators for their support. There will be cynicism and people will rightly say that this is a case of, "Make me virtuous, Lord, but not yet." There has been a serious shift of opinion in the Houses and among the electorate, driven largely by young people, to whom we must listen. There are plenty of young Irish people who can articulate the case just as well as any other person. I have spoken to many of them and they open one's eyes in how aware and conscious they are. I intend to have more systematic youth engagement as part of the engagement process that we are talking about.