John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One of the points I want to talk about is renewable energy and some of the attached benefits that we can initialise with renewable energy to encourage more people, in particular people in the farming community, to get involved. One of the issues I want to highlight in that regard is something I have raised in the Seanad before. It is about the abolition of the 50% rule, whereby no more than 50% of any holding can be made available for solar farming without the entire holding losing its agricultural status to qualify for agricultural relief. Essentially, what that means is if I have a field and I put solar energy on more than 51% of the field it then loses its agricultural value and reliefs. Therefore, there is no incentive for somebody to put solar energy on more than 50% of a particular field. That could be initiated by a quick change in the Finance Act towards the end of the year. If that were done, it would go a long way towards encouraging more people to get into solar farming and to increase the level of solar farming.

That is just one example of some of the ways we need to go about it. It is about introducing as many incentives as possible, perhaps through tax breaks, to encourage a drive into renewable energy. By the end of this decade and beyond, Ireland has the ability to become a renewable energy powerhouse, not just for itself but for the European Union, where we will be able to sell excess energy back to our European colleagues. Small tax breaks such as I have outlined would go a long way towards encouraging and incentivising people to get into solar farming. I would appreciate a debate on it at some stage in the future.