Mr. Seán Kelly:

I thank Senators for their interesting comments and questions and I will try to deal with a few of them. The European Green Deal and the Fit for 55 package have been the main focus of the European Union in recent years, at least until Russia threatened Ukraine. The EU is the only unit in global politics to come up with a strategy for reducing emissions by such an amount. The EU was also to the forefront at COP26 and so on. The targets are in place, including in Fit for 55. The EU is putting the policies together to achieve those targets and most of its work makes sense.

Renewable energies are the future of energy and the sooner we have them, the sooner we will be able to wean ourselves off the various fossil fuels. For this reason, our focus in Ireland should be on ensuring we can deploy renewables as quickly as possible. I am working in this area. I am a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, I am the rapporteur for the energy performance of buildings directive and I was a rapporteur for the renewable energy directive. As such, I have been deeply involved in this issue.

We need to speed up the deployment of renewables. One of my proposals, which I believe the EU will take on board, is that renewable projects should have a Fit for 55 label on them. This would help projects to secure permits and planning quicker. We know planning in Ireland is a nightmare, as several people in the wind industry have told me. Those are the issues we need to focus on if we want to wean ourselves off fossil fuels as soon as possible.

We are inclined to be idealistic. We say we want renewables in the future, so we should get rid of fossil fuels in the meantime. We have to keep the lights on and have energy. How will we do that? Gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels by far. We have seen the situation in Russia. It does not make sense to be dependent on one gas pipeline from the United Kingdom, which is no longer bound by European Union rules. We will need gas for 20 or 30 years, as even the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has said. Gas infrastructure can be redeployed to take hydrogen, so that is another positive.

We need two strategies. First, we should speed up renewables and make it easier for people who want to invest in them to get their projects up and running. A Fit for 55 label will help that. Second, we should find out what we need in the meantime and make sure there is security for those who want to invest in the country. Ordinary citizens should also know there will not be outages into the future.