Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House and my colleagues for bringing forward this important proposal. We need to look at ways that we can design our homes, public buildings and buildings in a more energy-friendly way.

There are a number of other important elements that are part of it. I wish to focus on our education and research system. We need to look at putting much greater emphasis on concepts around design in our education system. We must look at how we design our homes, communities and public buildings. From an early age, people need to have an understanding of the importance of renewable energy and how we can do things in a much more sustainable way. In our recovery following the pandemic, we need to focus on investment in research. We must look at how we can solve many of our national, and indeed global, challenges. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science was not set up to be an administrative Department. It was set up to be innovative and to look at the global issues that we are all facing, and prepare us all, as citizens and residents, for those challenges and opportunities that are coming down the line.

I hope the recovery plans the Government bring forward do not just focus on our economic recovery but also on how we can reshape our society to be able to avail of the possibilities of solar energy and other renewable energies, and how technologies can allow us to live much better lives.

We need to take that holistic approach. A greater emphasis in education must be placed on the design of sustainable communities from a very early stage, right through primary level and all the way through to fourth level education, with serious investment in research on how we solve global problems. We must set the challenge to some of our universities to outline how they are going to solve issues such as climate change. We must ask how we are going to ensure that we have an agricultural system that is sustainable, that supports our farmers and allows young farmers to continue on, yet at the same time guarantees that we are able to feed the 11 billion people who will be on this planet in 2100. That must be seen as part of the overall context.

There is much controversy around data centres. Data is the new gold. Ireland is ideally placed, for climate reasons, to build data centres. However, we know that data centres utilise a huge amount of energy. Can we be innovative in marrying up the use of solar and renewable energies with some of our data centres? If some of these data centres are not going to be viewed as sustainable on their own, if they partner with renewable energy generation, whether it is wave, wind or solar energy, will that be able to offset some of the challenges that we face in that space?

I agree with Senator Martin that there is money to be made in the green economy. However, we must allow people to generate income and we must incentivise it. One of the worries I have around CAP is that farmers in some way continue to be presented as not being able to contribute towards addressing climate change. There is no sector better placed to be able to do it. If we can incentivise our farm communities to use renewable energies, including solar energy, much more effectively, they will do that. If they get to own the carbon credits that they generate, they will do that. We must ensure we make all of our communities, and the farming community in particular, sustainable - environmentally as well as financially.

I welcome this Bill. There are some issues with it. I know the Government has been addressing them. It is crucial that we rethink how our homes, communities, colleges and also our private sector operate. It cannot just be seen as being part of the planning process and as a planning issue. It has to be about changing that thinking within all of our communities. That means introducing elements of design into our education system. In many ways, because we are coming out of this pandemic thinking about doing things in so many different ways, it is the ideal time to be able to do it.

What is being attempted in this Bill is very noble and the principle of it should be accepted. However, there are much broader issues that are related to it that need to be addressed. I hope and expect that all of those issues will be addressed in the Government's programmes coming out of the pandemic.