Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 March 2015
9. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will report on the consultation process with interested parties on the new energy policy document that is due to be published this summer; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10514/15]
View answerAn extensive consultation process was undertaken on the Green Paper on Energy Policy in Ireland following the publication of the Paper on 12 May 2014. This process included:
- a public written consultation process where members of the public had ten weeks in which to lodge their submissions;
- six seminars, one on each of the policy priority areas identified for consideration in the Green Paper;
- a separate seminar on the broad topic of energy costs for businesses; and
- four regional seminars.
Over 1,200 submissions were received as part of the written consultation process.
The six "priority" seminars and the "costs" seminar were organised by the Department and held in Dublin. The four regional seminars were organised by Irish Rural Link on behalf of the Department to ensure, insofar as was possible, that local, rural and regional interests were represented and provided with an opportunity to express their views on all aspects of Irish energy policy.
The purpose of the public consultation and stakeholder engagement events was to invite observations and suggestions from interested parties, to tease out the most important points highlighted, to express any other views, whether in writing or orally, and to identify policy points for consideration.
The next stage, now underway, involves a thorough analysis of the issues raised to distil the main themes into the policy paper. In this regard, the Minister will be advised by the expert members of the Energy Policy Advisory Group, which he established in September 2014. The members of the group are Professor John FitzGerald, formerly of the Economic and Social Research Institute, Ms. Helen Donoghue, a member of the Institute of International and European Affairs, and formerly of the European Commission, and Dr. Brian Motherway, CEO of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. The forthcoming policy paper will, when published in September 2015, set a clear policy framework out to 2030.
