Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. First, I welcome Senator Clonan to the House. I congratulate his family and friends because behind every politician who is successful in an election, there is a great team of tired and enthusiastic people who sometimes have more faith in you than you have in yourself. Well done to his house and to the team behind him.

I have some experience of working with modal shift and behavioural change in infrastructure around people with disabilities, having worked with schools for 14 years where I often came across that issue and sometimes encountered a lack of awareness. I would love to work with the Senator on that. Perhaps we could work on things with Engineers Ireland because design is a very significant issue. I look forward to working with Senator Clonan on that and on many other things. I welcome him to the House.

I will use the final few minutes of my time to raise again an issue that ties in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, report, the war in Ukraine and the challenges of living in rural Ireland. The solar panel Bill, which the Green Party brought forward over a year ago now, has been delayed over and over again. Finally, it looks like everything that needs to be done has been done. The ecology reports have been completed, the i's have been dotted and the t's have been crossed. This Bill would enable communities, community groups, schools and farmers to put photovoltaic solar panels on their roofs without planning permission. We already have companies offering 17.5 cent a unit to farmers as soon as they can start selling them energy.

This Bill is very important because it does many different things in many ways. It can save the Department of Education money on its bills for schools as they will be able to sell energy during the summer. It will get us off the addiction to fossil fuels which we have had for too long, and which we have been calling to move away from for many years. It has always been a priority for the Green Party to look at our fossil fuel addiction, to leave everything we can in the ground, to become self-sufficient and to become net exporters of energy. For people living in rural areas, especially for farmers who have many sheds with roofs, this will get rid of the limit to what they can put up and eliminate the need to apply for planning permission. It will help them to make another income. We all know that farmers, especially small rural farmers, unlike the big farmers - I always make this distinction - need other incomes because their farming is marginal and they can barely survive on what they are earning. Most of them have second and third jobs. It is very important that this Bill is brought to pass. I hope the whole House will support me on this because it will enable community groups and community halls, farmers, rural dwellers and anyone who has a bit of a roof anywhere to get photovoltaic panels up on their roofs without the cumbersome bureaucracy that we had created for years to make this prohibitive. People can then own their own energy because there is nothing better than owning your own energy and becoming aware of how much you use. For too long, we have been removed from the source of our energy and the amount we use. This is partly because we have not been producing it ourselves. It would be great if we could see this Bill brought forward. I encourage the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to make it one of his top priorities to get away from this overdependence on fossil fuels. At the moment, we are fuelling Putin's war which is a disgusting thing.

I remind the House that tomorrow, when the President of Ukraine makes his address to the joint sitting of the Houses, it is hoped that most people will wear the Ukrainian colours to show him, even if it is only a token gesture, that we are behind him, as stated by Senator McDowell. Senator Clonan may not yet have received the memo on this but he may have some blue and yellow in his house. The Bill I have mentioned is very important for many people in many ways.