Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is amazing how one’s mind works while sitting here listening to debate. I am not sure if the Minister of State is aware of EnergyCloud, which is operating in the north east at the moment, with the assistance of SSE Airtricity and a number of other electricity suppliers. EnergyCloud operates on the basis that wind turbines produce energy even when it is not required. In the north east, they have come together to provide free hot water by way of a retrofit to the water heating system of local authority houses. The people who get this are all living in social housing. They get a credit on their ESB bills of some €30 per month for consuming the electricity that has nowhere to go in the middle of the night.

What Senator McDowell said makes absolutely perfect sense to me. We have the capacity to generate electricity for 50,000 houses in Derrybrien. As a nation, we are strapped at the moment because of the rising cost of energy. We have a European energy crisis on our hands. Could we not, as Senator McDowell asked, put legislation in place that would allow these turbines to be taken into State ownership and provide free electricity to those who need it? We threw out €200 each off our ESB bills to me and everybody else who did not need it. Could we not use the energy coming to the 50,000 houses to provide free electricity to those living in social housing in the greater Galway area? Would it not make more sense to do this than to tear down something that is working perfectly, that is operating at about 90% or 99% efficiency all of the time and that has an extraordinary crew of engineers that look after it? Not one of those I met tried to save Derrybrien, because they had other areas they were looking at also. They just gave me the cold hard facts as to what was being produced there.

Senator McDowell has hit the nail on the head by suggesting that we step back from this, see if we can put legislation together and get it through this House as quickly as possible, not destroy a perfectly good generating system and not damage further what is already damaged by trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube.

I implore the Minister of State to take on board our amendment, and to take what has just occurred in this House back to the Cabinet to say, "Guys, can we sit down and take another look at this?" I ask the Minister of State to do that.