Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

What I said - I want the Minister of State to be clear on this - was that what we did in Ireland was, in the context of other developments internationally, including in terms of methane, not going to prevent the melting of glaciers in an emergency situation.

I believe that the Attorney General has given the Government good advice on this occasion and that the phraseology of the proposed new section 82D is reasonable and defensible. I wish to put on the record why it is necessary that this be done. I presume it is because the Attorney General foresees that, if that section is not in this Bill, any proposal for emergency generating capacity will end up in the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, with injunctions being sought to prevent such measures being taken on the basis that the wording that the Attorney General has asked for is not present in the Act and that the emergency nature of this and the practicalities arising from the emergency that this is designed to avoid have not been taken into account.

I have not used any deprecatory language in this debate, but to suggest that I said it did not matter what we did in Ireland and to extrapolate from that "let us throw all our rubbish into the sea" does not match what I said. I am saying that, if this country faced an emergency and had to take emergency steps because the existing law would open the door for litigation in the High Court if this particular wording was not there, the emergency would be well and truly on us by the time the various court actions were resolved.

We are moving more and more towards being an electricity-dependent world. We must increase our capacity to generate electricity. We are being told about motor cars, buses, battery-driven trains and all the rest of it. We know where we are going, so let us not cod ourselves that we are all going to survive on the existing renewable infrastructure. We need the development of renewable infrastructure to be accelerated in terms of offshore wind development. Having a two-tier planning process with MARA on the one hand and An Bord Pleanála on the other is a big mistake. An Bord Pleanála does not have the capacity to deal with this issue. We should have devised a simpler licensing and regulatory process under one single body to determine who could build offshore wind facilities and where, taking into account environmental and other matters.

However, we are where we are and we are facing into an emergency. No one in this House would be thanked by the Irish people in 12 months if the lights went out or if matters got into serious difficulty. The mistakes that were made in the past, to which I adverted, were plain and obvious and swept under the carpet. I recall one case where the courts were told that it was too early for An Bord Pleanála to take into account the likely effect of ongoing construction of data centres and to develop a policy on the matter. That argument was used by An Bord Pleanála to allow for the Apple data centre in Athenry. I will not comment any further because I was involved in that case and I never comment on cases, but that was an argument that was put forward at the time. It was not too early. It has all been far too late.