Vol. 577 No. 4
68 Mr. M. Higgins asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources if he will make a statement on the outcome of his recent meeting with the Northern Ireland Office Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ian Pearson MP, to discuss North-South energy issues. [31255/03]
I met my counterpart, Ian Pearson MP, the Northern Ireland Office Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment on Monday, 8 December, in Belfast. The purpose of our meeting was to review progress on the specific work areas that we had identified for action at our previous meeting on 17 July 2003. On that occasion, we established a joint steering group to advance work in six areas. The joint steering group is comprised of senior officials from our two Departments and the two regulatory authorities.
On Monday last, Minister Pearson and I reviewed the body of work undertaken to date under the auspices of the joint steering group. We also decided to initiate some specific actions which we considered should be brought forward by the group. In particular, we requested the energy regulators, working with the transmission system operators, to report back in three months with a timetable and specific work programme designed to achieve the objective of joint transmission planning in the electricity sector.
On the gas side, we invited the two regulators, within three months, to report on the costs, benefits and any constraints that may exist in relation to the harmonisation of gas transmission tariff structures on an island wide basis. In addition, we considered that it was now appropriate that details of the ongoing work of the joint steering group should be shared with interested parties and, to this end, decided that an information seminar should be held in the new year. We also agreed that the North-South energy dialogue would benefit from further review by Ministers in three to four months.
The IBEC-CBI joint business council recently submitted a paper supporting the creation of an all-island energy market and Minister Pearson and I took the opportunity afforded by our meeting to publicly welcome the submission of this helpful contribution to discussions on this important issue from key players in our two economies.
