Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 436: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the outcome of the recent meeting between the heads of the European Union and the Russian President on energy matters; and the consequences of the meeting for Irish energy policy. [35188/06]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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An Taoiseach attended the informal meeting of Heads of Government at Lahti, Finland, on October 20th last, which included a meeting with President Putin. The Heads of State and Government leaders conveyed a clear collective message to President Putin stressing the importance of mutual dependence and recognition for good cooperation between the EU and Russia and emphasising the need for reliability and predictability as the basis for good relations.

The generally agreed need for coherence between the internal and external dimensions of EU energy policy is of particular relevance to Ireland. The recently published energy policy Green Paper stresses our need to maintain diversity of fuels, dramatically increase our use of renewable energy and to have challenging targets for increased energy efficiency. These have also been highlighted in the EU Green Paper on energy policy, 'A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy'. However, reliance on imports accentuates Ireland's interest in ensuring that there are secure sources of fossil fuels for Europe in future.

In this context, progress on EU-Russia cooperation on energy matters as well as diversifying sources of energy supply from the European perspective will be critical to Ireland's long-term energy interests.