John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I tried to think of a witty response to that but I have failed on this occasion. More power to you and fair play if you are willing to make the right decision, as Senator Keogan mentioned, to say that this is the right thing for us to do. It may be a good idea or the right thing to do but it will not get us there any quicker than renewable energy will. If this was a magic bullet that would get us there quicker I would be all for it. I would say let us go and do it, let us have the debate in those communities, let us champion this idea, let us sell it to the public and let us bring the public with us and say that nuclear energy is the way we need to go. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has just said that it would take a long time to get something like that up and running in Ireland, even if the entire country was for it. It would take so long to build it, get it into the grid and get it working to be able to serve our system that it is not feasible at any stage because we are so far behind on the debate. I am using myself as an example, where six months ago I said we should be having the debate about it. What Senators Keogan and Mullen have said about it is legitimate and what the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was good and that is the debate that should be had in public because the point is that we should have the debate. I have had the debate in this Chamber myself and I am willing to say that I have changed my views on it. I have tried to make some useful points on it.

The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, made another point and I had a conversation about this earlier with a friend who used to work in these Houses and who now works in policy in the European Union. He mentioned REPowerEU, which is a plan to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels. That plan acknowledges the situation we have on the European Continent and it will dramatically fast forward and supercharge the transition, which we will do in a number of ways. The two things I want to focus on are what we will do with EU solar energy and the solar rooftop initiative. I think this is great and I will pick out a small thing. In the solar rooftop initiative, the EU will say that every public building must, by obligation, have a solar panel on its roof and this will be a requirement of the planning processes. This will not be an option or a decision when these buildings are being built. It is through small measures like that we will reduce our dependency on Russian oil and gas, it will increase our ability in renewable energy and it will help us to get to those targets by 2030 and further on.

This debate has been a good one to have, I appreciate Senators Mullen and Keogan for bringing it to the floor because the essence of this Chamber is when we are able to debate issues. Nuclear energy is not the silver bullet and it will not help us to get there any way quicker. We all want to get to the same place, whether we are on the political left, right or centre in this country. We all agree that climate change is an issue and that it is the biggest issue facing this generation and the world. We all agree on that and we all agree that we have to do something to stop it and to stop the temperature of the world rising. However, nuclear energy is not the magic bullet for that and it will not help us to reach our targets any quicker. For that reason I cannot support this motion but I can support the Government amendment.