Before members leave, I point out that next Tuesday at 11.30 a.m. we will meet representatives from the Northern Ireland Assembly and I ask as many members as possible to attend. It is a sort of private meeting to brief them on the workings of this committee and it will not take too long.
Business of Joint Committee.
Will the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Sammy Wilson, be attending?
Those attending will be the chairman of the environment committee, Mr. Patsy McGlone, MLA, and the deputy chairman, Mr. Cathal Boylan, MLA.
I am disappointed. I was hoping to engage with Mr. Wilson on the issue of climate change.
It is next Tuesday at 11.30 a.m.
There was an issue regarding development of the grid. There was a curious article in today's newspaper and perhaps we should find out a bit more about it. An organisation called the Academy of Engineers produced a report indicating that connections for wind energy were far too expensive and that we should stop using them and go back to the drawing board, essentially. I am not sure what the agenda was but it did seem to be a legitimate piece of research. Perhaps our advisers could get a copy of it to see what it is all about.
We will look into that.
I draw the committee's attention to the public consultation exercise we launched last month on Ireland's post-2020 electricity needs. The deadline for receipt of submissions is 6 July, so I hope we can meet our advisers before we break up for the summer to get an update on the submissions. Perhaps Mr. Taylor will produce a report for discussion. With the co-operation of the advisers we can have a meeting before the end of July at which we can discuss these issues.
The joint committee adjourned at 3.50 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 8 July 2009.