Adjournment Debate

Alternative Energy Projects

Deputy Michelle Mulherin

There has been a great deal of debate about the excellent wind speeds along this country's western seaboard. We do not have hard information about the nature of the resource that is available to us. It is like drilling a few trial holes for oil without being able to assess or quantify the actual resource we have. Notwithstanding all the fine talk about our renewable wind energy resource, and the fact that we have the best wind speeds in Europe, the reality is the development of our wind energy potential is decades behind that of our European neighbours. If we are to stop guessing, it is important for us to have an objective measurement of this resource. When we are telling investors about this commodity, we should be able to calculate the productivity and returns they can expect at certain heights, such as 50 m, 100 m or 150 m. Such bankable information is needed to ensure investment in the wind industry is fast-tracked.

Bankers demand quality of production data, known as P90 data, when they are deciding whether to invest in wind industry products. We need to be able to take such information to the ECB and the UK Treasury. Such data allow the Government to be realistic about the actual commodity when it is assessing how wind can contribute to the targets of producing 40% of energy from renewable sources by 2020 and reducing our carbon emissions. The British Government recently said it would be interested in subsidising the Irish wind farm industry. When the State deals with such investors, it should know with what it is dealing, for what it should be looking and the terms it should be striking. Information on the optimum locations and heights for turbines should be available to county councillors and planning authorities when they are deciding how to achieve the best productivity with the smallest number of turbines. We do not need wind turbines in every location where the wind blows. Therefore, we need to be able to plan and prioritise where we should, or should not, build this country's transmission grid.

The wind is an indigenous natural resource like oil, gas and peat. The State needs to avoid relying on investors to ascertain the value of this commodity. This is one of the recurring themes that have blighted the progress of the Corrib gas field, for example. It has been suggested that the best deal for Irish citizens was not obtained when a natural resource was being developed in that instance. Above all, the Irish public is entitled to get full knowledge about the value of this commodity. The people of the west will be required to accommodate the infrastructural burden associated with the wind turbines and transmission lines that have to be constructed for the benefit of the entire country. They need to be shown what is the prize and the community benefits for people living in the west. If the Government's ambitions for the development of our wind energy capacity and the achievement of European targets are to be fulfilled, ordinary citizens must embrace and participate in the journey towards this realisation. Although the people of the west are keen to play their part in this country's economic recovery, they do not want simply to be told by experts what is best for them. People are intelligent enough to appreciate a good deal if that is what is on offer. If wind is the resource to be developed, people will get behind it. Dialogue and transparency are needed as part of that.

Has the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources properly measured this resource? If not, does it intend to do so? A resource assessment could be conducted using the resource data held by Met Éireann, Coillte and Bord na Móna. Separate assessments could be done if there are gaps in that information. I was a member of Mayo County Council when it was trying to develop a renewable energy strategy. When we sought resource data from semi-State and State agencies like Bord na Móna and Coillte, we found they were unwilling to share them with us even though their compilation had been paid for by Irish taxpayers. It is unacceptable that they refused to provide this data on the grounds that they were commercially sensitive. We are working in unison in this respect or we are not. Does the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources accept that this resource needs to be measured? I believe it does, as a critical starting point in our journey towards a true realisation of our wind energy resource potential. What steps will be taken in this regard? If the Minister does not believe we need to do this, perhaps he will explain why.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Kathleen Lynch)

I thank Deputy Mulherin for raising the issue. It is something we will have to deal with much more substantially in the future.

The seasonal and annual mean wind speeds per county have been modelled by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, which has responsibility for the production of the national wind atlas. The mean wind speed figure might provide an indication for a county and a useful comparison of a county to other counties but local factors are always crucial in producing the actual mean wind speed at a site. Such local factors include altitude, aspect, topography, land use and exposure. As a result, the mean annual wind speed at different locations within a county can vary greatly. A particular site's annual mean wind speed can be estimated using the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's online wind atlas which is available on the SEAI website. This will provide a better indication of the potential mean wind speed in a locality as opposed to the county's mean figure.

At a national level the estimated accessible wind resource on land in 2020 is 12,000 MW using the methodology developed by SEAI. My Department is in discussion with the SEAI regarding plans to update this information and data. The SEAI advises that the accessible resource estimate accounts for the following constraints among others: minimum recommended spacing between turbines; extracted wind speeds below 7.5 m per second; buffer zones on and around habitation, roads, lakes, infrastructure and airports; cost; and social acceptance of wind turbines. Current installed renewable generating plant capacity is at 1,776 MW. Estimates for the amount of installed renewable energy capacity needed to reach our 2020 targets are in the order of 4,630 MW to 5,800 MW. Clearly, the accessible resource far exceeds what will be required for domestic needs.

High fossil fuel prices and geopolitical uncertainty underline the importance of renewable energy for security of supply and sustainable energy production. It is clear that renewable energy has a crucial role to play in providing us with a cleaner and more sustainable source of fuel in the context of climate change. The European Union has also recognised the important role that renewable energy can play. To ensure member states harness the benefits of renewable energy, each country has been given a binding renewable energy target that it must achieve by 2020. Ireland's target of 16% overall of all energy consumed across transport, heating and electricity is a five-fold increase on where we were in 2005 and, while very challenging, is deliverable. Ireland has one of the best wind resources in all of Europe. The bulk of our overall renewable energy target will be met through wind. This is because of the scale of our wind resources. By 2020, some 36% of our consumption in the electricity sector will be from wind generated electricity.

We have made great strides in Ireland in the last decade in increasing our use of renewable energy. In 2003, only 4.3% of our electricity consumption was from renewable sources. At the end of last year, this was in excess of 13%, mainly due to the large increase in wind energy. Wind generated electricity is supported through a feed-in tariff scheme known as REFIT. This means that a minimum price is paid to renewable generators over 15 years to allow them to finance renewable projects. Studies by EirGrid and the SEAI have shown that wind energy reduces the market price of all electricity at certain times, which benefits consumers and offsets any costs of the REFIT scheme. Developing a large amount of renewable energy over the next decade will mean that significant electricity grid upgrades are needed. EirGrid's Grid 25 strategy and implementation plans set out how this can be done. New electricity infrastructure is necessary to transport this renewable electricity. What we will see over the next decade is a transformation of our electricity landscape from one where we are highly dependent on fossil fuels to one where renewable energy makes a significant contribution. The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, attended the British-Irish Council meeting with the Taoiseach in London yesterday. The considerable potential for close co-operation across these islands in the development and trading of renewable energy was the main focus of the agenda at that meeting. We will be working with the UK, Northern Ireland and Scotland to deliver on this shared opportunity and challenge.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I hope the reply was of some benefit.

Enterprise and Investment Visa

Deputy Eoghan Murphy

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, for being here to take this matter. I congratulate the Minister and the Government on the initiative taken in this area already as part of the larger jobs initiative programme. It is important there is consistency with our nearest neighbours in this regard and I very much look forward to reviewing the scheme when it is completed. No doubt its eventual success will be positive for this country.

I have raised this matter with the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, on a couple of occasions already since the Dáil began. I noted the figures he provided to me on those seeking and receiving the business permission entry scheme in recent years. I believe we can do better and I think the Minister agrees. In that regard, I was encouraged to learn his officials are working on new immigration schemes in the area of entrepreneurship and investment.

I have raised this matter on the Adjournment because I wanted to offer some ideas of my own. We lost a generation of entrepreneurs in this country. Those who had the spirit and the talent went into property development. Others, for whatever reasons, were persuaded to go into the perceived safety of certain professions. We risk losing another generation overseas because of the economic crisis. We need to get that spirit of enterprise back into this country and I think we need help from abroad to do it.

We know Ireland is an attractive place to live. We know people want to come here and to work. We also know people want to come here to set up companies. This is very true in particular sectors, especially the high-tech one. We have some great start-up companies getting going in this area in this country. We have the big foreign direct investment players such as Google and Facebook, but we need to get that third pillar, the foreign start-up company. We need to look at ways of attracting foreign start-up companies to Ireland to add to the culture in that sector and in other sectors and to get that aspect of the economy growing again.

The UK has what is called an entrepreneur visa scheme, which it recently reviewed. We have the business permission scheme. I think that we can learn from our neighbours in this regard to rebrand the business scheme as an Irish entrepreneur's visa and make some changes that will make it easier for foreign persons to come to Ireland to start a company in whatever sector, to create investment and jobs, and also to create a new culture of enterprise that, unfortunately, has been missing in recent years.

I want to outline to the Minister a couple of suggestions as to how this scheme could be improved into an enterprise visa. I have more details if the Minister would like them, but I will briefly go through six points that I have here. The first relates to start-up funding. If a foreign person wants to come to Ireland to set up a company, he or she needs to have a minimum of €300,000 to do so. That is quite a lot of money, especially if one is working in the high-tech sector where today's start-up companies are quite lean and mean. We need to reduce this figure to €200,000, for example. It is still a lot, but €300,000 is too much. That small reduction could help in attracting people into this country to set up their own companies.

On business partners, most people setting up a company do not do so alone. If two persons were to come here from abroad to set up a company and needed permission to do so, they would have to make two separate applications, go through two separate vetting processes and have two separate amounts of funding. That is too much. We need to facilitate it in order that a company — the business or potential business itself — can apply as one. That would make much sense in that regard.

The INIS website is not clear enough. This is a simple change we can make. People need to find the information more quickly and easily. For example, people cannot find out details on the overall length of visa, the initial residence as well as any eventual terms of settlement or naturalisation. The lack of information is acting as a barrier to people.

There is also a bureaucratic burden in which an individual making an application must make it to two separate bodies. That does not make any sense. We need to centralise that. We could take an holistic approach to the applications for such enterprise visas.

There is also a support gap. Companies starting up here have good supports — the city enterprise boards, the county enterprise boards and Enterprise Ireland — but there is no support for a foreign person coming to Ireland to set up a business. We need to fill that gap.

The last issue is vetting. Currently, a person who wants to apply for the business permission scheme must have his or her business plan vetted by an accountancy firm. They want to know where one is taking out a rental agreement and the layout for one's offices. It is too much information. If a person has €300,000 or €200,000 in funding and is backed by a VC firm or accountancy firm, that should be enough.

These are six small changes that I propose to the Minister. I would be interested in hearing the Minister's thinking on reforming the business permission scheme into something akin to the UK enterprise scheme. If the Minister would like any further information from my office, I would be happy to give it.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

I very much appreciate Deputy Eoghan Murphy's input. I note he has already had several conversations with the Minister in this respect. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and for inviting me to outline to the House the future direction of the Government's policy in this area. As indicated previously to the House, there is scope for the Department to play a more proactive role in the national recovery effort. An early indication of this commitment was clearly displayed on 11 May when the Minister, Deputy Shatter, announced the introduction of a visa waiver programme to provide an impetus to the tourist sector by allowing nationals of certain specified countries who obtain a short-term visa for the United Kingdom to visit Ireland without the need to obtain a separate Irish visa. It has been our view for some time that we need to ensure our visa regulatory framework does not act as a barrier to expanding our tourism industry or as a disincentive to potential visitors to the State. The Minister, Deputy Shatter, is pleased to be able to provide practical assistance in this regard.

Other initiatives undertaken by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service in recent times have involved changes to the immigration arrangements for several categories of migrants to ensure more transparent and appropriate rules and, in particular, the ongoing reform of the student immigration system to assist the development of Ireland's high quality international education services industry.

In the area of entrepreneurship and investment, the Minister agrees with the Deputy that the current business permission scheme operated by the Department through the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service needs a major overhaul. The current scheme, which has been in operation for several years, has been reviewed by the Department and it is considered to be insufficiently flexible in several areas, including the financial investment threshold and the employment targets. In this regard the Department's analysis concurs in many respects with the Deputy's views. Furthermore, the existing system does not cater for the needs of innovation start-up enterprises which will often initially employ only the principals. In addition, at present we do not have an immigration regime that caters for high net worth individuals who are willing to make a significant investment in the country in return for being allowed to reside here. Most other countries have such schemes in place and we need to be competitive. Even a small number of additional investments and enterprises attracted to Ireland could have a significant impact.

The purpose of an investor scheme is to ensure that the funds available provide a clearly visible benefit to the State. The funds would need to be substantial and for such arrangements to have any meaningful impact the investment would probably need to exist for an appreciable period. The nature of the investment is one of the issues being explored at present. Accordingly, the officials have been drawing up draft proposals for the Minister that would have the effect of broadening the eligibility criteria for business persons and investors to reside in Ireland.

Migrant entrepreneurship and investment remain resources that have been insufficiently tapped into in the past and we must create what might be termed a more "diversified portfolio" within the immigration system aimed at attracting such persons to live, work and invest in Ireland. In this regard we can consider putting in place an attractive immigration package while ensuring that necessary immigration controls remain in place. The Department is currently in consultation with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and others and key agencies such as the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Forfás with a view to assessing how the immigration system might facilitate further entrepreneurship and investment here. Draft proposals are under discussion at present. A key component identified by the Department will be the role the agencies can play in vetting or recommending projects, especially those where capital requirements can be offset by significant potential.

Also, we have been reviewing what has been done in somewhat comparable immigration countries like United Kingdom, the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand in this area. We expect to receive recommendations in the coming weeks. We do not wish to be too prescriptive at this point but there is significant scope for progress in the area. Certainly, we expect that the new arrangements will be up and running later this year.

I thank my colleague for raising this important and topical issue. Deputy Murphy's contribution has been most helpful and he may rest assured that all the points he has made will be taken on board.

Ambulance Service

Deputy Dara Calleary

I wish to share time with Deputy John O'Mahony. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing this debate and I thank the Minister of State for being here. The patient transport scheme enables those on the west coast who cannot access dialysis or cancer care appointments to get to their hospital appointment. It affects 456 patients from Donegal to the Galway border, 125 of whom are dialysis patients in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon and a further 73 of whom use the service to access cancer treatment generally in the regional hospital in Galway.

People in need of dialysis or cancer treatment are at their lowest ebb and should not need to worry about transport. It may be difficult for those living in an urban or city environment to imagine that we need this service. However, when one lives 100 miles or 150 miles from a hospital or treatment centre, when one does not have access to a car, a neighbour or family member to provide assistance, one needs such a service. One should not need to worry about how to get treatment at such a stage of one's life.

There are many operators on the west coast who give ceaselessly and selflessly to the service. I imagine most of these do not make much profit given the service they provide. Deputy Mulherin is in the House and I cannot let the occasion pass without acknowledging her late father who operated this service wonderfully for many years. The fact that Deputy O'Mahony and I are sharing time shows that we are keen to do this on a cross-party non-partisan basis to try to get a resolution to a letter that issued on Friday to Mayo General Hospital and Roscommon County Hospital that the service for dialysis and cancer patients would cease as of 1 July.

I understand at the HSE Regional Health Forum, West meeting today an indication was given that work is under way to try to resolve this. I call on the Minister of State, who has an interest in this issue, to intervene to ensure that urgent clarity is given to the effect that the service will continue beyond 1 July. The 456 people to whom I referred tonight wonder how they will get their dialysis or cancer treatment after 1 July. We should not allow these people to worry beyond tomorrow.

A review is under way into the quality of the service. That review should continue but I call on the Minister of State to allow the service to continue until the review is complete. Many options could be examined collectively in terms of co-operative transport, rural transport and schemes similar to the Irish Cancer Society scheme.

At issue is a relatively small amount of money. A sum of €500,000 could resolve the issue for this year. Let us consider that in the jobs initiative there remains €200 million underspending from the money being raised through the pension levy. One operator informed me yesterday that he will lay off five people if this decision goes ahead. Lord knows how many people along the west coast will be laid off. Surely, we could take a little of the underspending to save these jobs and, more importantly, give comfort to these people at a low ebb in their life.

Deputy John O’Mahony

I thank Deputy Calleary for sharing time to discuss this immediate issue which, since it broke in recent few days, is a cause of great concern among the people who use and depend on the service. Deputy Calleary provided the facts and figures but all of us have spoken to people affected by it. Before I came into the Chamber I spoke to an elderly lady who is living with her elderly sister. She does not have transport, she cannot drive and she is living in the south of the county. She must get a lift to Claremorris to get a bus which does not arrive in Castlebar until one and a half hours after the treatment is due to begin. When her treatment is finished at the end of the day there is no bus service to bring her back.

The reality is that the required public transport is not in place but these vulnerable people should not be exposed in this situation. I realise the Minister, Deputy Reilly, has seen many issues fall out of the sky during recent weeks, including accident and emergency issues, hospital doctors, the fair deal scheme and so on and he is dealing with these. However, it is important that this matter is dealt with quickly and that the trauma of wondering whether transport will be available is removed. Earlier this evening, I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Reilly. I realise that in the coming days he will meet senior officials from the HSE, west. I realise he wishes to see this matter solved but I stress to the Minister and all Deputies that it should be done as quickly as possible.

The immediacy of the proposed change requires urgent action. Patients who require this service are suffering enough trauma without having to wonder whether it will continue beyond 30 June.

Deputy Kathleen Lynch

I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly.

The national ambulance service provides pre-hospital emergency care, as well as emergency and some non-emergency patient transport. Non-emergency transport comprises inter-hospital transfers and patient transport from home to health facility and from health facility to home. It includes both Health Service Executive and private transport providers.

The HSE has not taken any decisions to withdraw services. However, the executive is operating within serious budgetary constraints and must take the necessary actions to live within budget. The Minister has instructed the HSE generally not to withdraw any services from acute hospitals unless and until he receives a full briefing on the details of what is proposed, alternative arrangements to be put in place and the overall implications for patients.

Supported by the Department of Health and the Health Information and Quality Authority, the national ambulance service is working to improve the management and integration of its services. This involves a reduction to two ambulance control centres nationally, with appropriate technology; a clinical lead for pre-hospital care; development and implementation of new performance indicators for pre-hospital care; and development of standard national criteria for non-emergency patient transport.

There are several systems of support in place for cancer patients who have to travel for treatment, through community welfare office services and the Travel2Care scheme. The latter is being implemented on a phased basis in line with the transfer of cancer services to the eight designated cancer centres and the approved satellite centre in Letterkenny for patients for whom the transfer of services would otherwise cause financial hardship. The scheme which is funded by the national cancer control programme and administered by the Irish Cancer Society provides some financial help towards the cost of public transport such as trains or buses, private transport costs, or petrol and parking costs.

The national ambulance service has undergone significant change in order to ensure quality, safety and value for money. In line with other clinical areas, this process is ongoing as clinical needs and standards develop. These developments are in the best interests of patients and a key part of the Government's work to ensure high quality emergency care. If we are to provide the best of care for patients with high-end medical needs — people who are already worried and stressed because of their condition — we must do all in our power to ensure we do not exacerbate that worry. I completely agree with the Deputies in this regard and will bring the matter to the Minister's attention in the morning.

I take the opportunity to thank Deputy Dara Calleary for his unceasing support and great advice on Adjournment matters. I appreciate his assistance.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.05 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 June 2011.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Tuesday, 21 Jun 2011