Matt Shanahan Questions EV Rollout, Offshore Wind and Land Deals

I am glad to participate in this debate today, and I took careful note of Minister Ryan's opening statement and the stretching targets that he highlighted in terms of the Climate Action Plan, and I have some questions in relation to certain sectors that the Minister saw, so maybe if I just go through some of them, Minister, and you might come back to me in writing, if you please. Firstly, in terms of the transport sector and the adoption of electric cars, and we are now starting to see the pinch points that are coming in the country in terms of electric car consumption. Firstly, we have the range anxiety that is building because of the lack of charging infrastructure in the country, and we also have the costs rising. Indeed, the Green Party were at the forefront of ensuring that hybrid cars were not included in terms of the programme for government, and I think that was a mistake. But I would ask you, Minister, in terms of the analysis now of electric car consumption, where are we going in terms of the worldwide production? We know the figures that we had here of a million cars on the road by 2030 electric, we are not going to get anywhere close to that. But there are also the issues of the minerals that are produced in electric cars and the ethics around the harvesting of the likes of lithium and cobalt, particularly in countries where child labour is being used about that. And again, has Ireland taken any steps in terms of trying to understand these considerations? Beyond that, I just point out to you, in Waterford this year, the local authority has announced a plan to provide an additional 12 on-street charging points in the city as part of the plan for the coming year, in a city where electric car adoption is running at 15 per cent per annum, the same as it is nationally. So, Minister, I would ask you maybe to come back to me and address some of that. I would also ask you, is it realistic to suppose that people who live outside of the urban areas can adopt electric easily? For the points that I raised, firstly, the costs, secondly, the range anxiety, and also that they cannot access suitable and frequent public transport alternatives. And it just wonders, it speaks to me that potentially the climate agenda, is it trying to direct our rural populations into urban populations over the next 20 years? Is that where it is going? The Minister spoke about electricity generation and the great opportunities that are being presented to Ireland, and he spoke about the significant potential to develop offshore wind. And I would like to just speak about offshore wind that is being surveyed off the south coast of the country at the moment, specifically in my own area, Waterford, adjacent to the Copper Coast. And what we have there is a number of farm licenses being considered for wind farms totalling anywhere between 50 and 70 turbines, fixed pylon turbines, fixed to the seabed, ranging upwards, and I think all will be at 350 metre height. So, well above what the spire in Dublin is. And I am told by people in the maritime industry there that the shelf that runs along that coastline dips off beyond 60 metres, somewhere close to two miles offshore, and therefore these pylons cannot be fixed. And Minister, I would like to understand, because we have not had any clarity yet, exactly where are these pylons going to be situated? How close to shore are they going to come in? And beyond that, in terms of just transition, could I speak about the immunity damage that is potentially to be done, and what the compensation will be? And I understand that for some of these farms, a community dividend of 15 to 18 million euro is being considered over the lifetime of the project, payable in the first 15 years of a 25-year project. I do not see the sense of that. If wind turbines are spinning for 25 years, the community needs to be getting compensated. And I do not think it is fair to say that 1.5% of the overall investment, which these would be over a billion euro, is adequate to compensate the coastal communities that are going to be impacted in terms of wind. Could I also ask a minister, in terms of the contracts that are being drawn up around wind, and we obviously do not have the regulatory body activated as yet, and that seems to be a delay that is hard to understand. Where is Mara at this point in time? But obviously negotiations are taking place between wind providers at the moment, because they would not be surveying the sites if they were not. I would like to know a couple of things in terms of the contract terms. Have we secured ourselves in terms of the future spot rate of electricity that will be charged to the Irish grid, as opposed to that which will be exported from Ireland? So in other words, is it the case that Ireland could find itself paying more for the domestic produced electricity on our shores, as opposed to what might be paid on the open French or German markets where electricity has been exported? And secondly, could I ask you, have we considered at all any lever or any pivot within the contracts, if the State wishes to buy out those wind farms at any point along their 25-year contract terms? And there are many reasons why the State might want to make such a purchase, but the question is, is it understood within the contracts that are being devised at the moment? As I say, the community dividend was the other thing, yes. Can I just go on to the agricultural sector? And it has been referenced a number of times in the House today, and that is this Quilche deal with Gresham House. And the proposal here, it appears to be for upwards of 250,000 acres, could become privately taken in by Quilche and Gresham. And obviously what this would require in some cases for Irish landholders to sell their land holdings. And what is on offer to Gresham? Potentially 2.1 billion euro of State supports and subsidies that should be going into the rural and regional economy, that should be going to support Irish farm growers, and to my mind, not funds in Treadneedle and Bond Street. And in terms of the licensing authority at the moment, Minister, you might be interested to know that of the 2022 licensing applications processed, Quilche achieved 110% of its license applications, which I am sure they were very happy about. But by contrast, private felling only achieved 80%, and private afforestation only achieved 60%. So we cannot get, or private growers cannot get their forestry licenses approved, and at the same time we have a new forestry program being talked about by the department. And nothing, nothing is yet considered for the ash dieback program, which a lot of growers are already in, and they need to understand what the impacts of that are before they can grow again. But I would echo the calls of other people in the House here today. I am absolutely opposed to the idea that Irish subsidies, state subsidies will go to support UK or foreign equities in terms of our domestic forestry sector. We have ample amount of growers and farmers in this country who are prepared to grow forestry, if they are given access to the subsidies and the licenses, and that is not happening at the moment. And one other area I would mention to you, Minister, in terms of agriculture, is the whole issue of multi-seed pasture land. Minister Ryan was in Warford about 14 months ago. I thought he was coming down to review the great work being done by the Warford Institute of Technology into multi-seed sward analysis, which has been going on for five years, but at the time he did not have the time to look at it, unfortunately. But can I recommend a film on Netflix to your minister called Kiss the Ground? Maybe you have seen it. It is narrated by the American actor Woody Harrelson, and it basically talks about desertification, which is an ongoing climate challenge right across the world. And largely it is to do with the tilling and spraying of land, which is stripping the topsoil and ultimately killing the microbiome underneath. And we have a lot of work going on in the country, as I say, particularly down in WIT, in terms of multi-seed pasture land, which could, it appears, could remedy part of this problem and could return the microbiome, but also could add additional inputs in terms of carbon sequestration. And we have no policy in place at the moment, Minister, in the country to incentivise farmers to move into these systems. So I would ask you, please, maybe to take those in terms of the Climate Action Plan. I would appreciate it if you would return to me on the questions that I have asked the Minister. And I think at the end of the day, what everybody needs here is, we do need stretching targets, but we also need just transition, with the emphasis on the word just. Thank you. So, I think we will go through the second step. Dr. Brenna Skowalnyi, now we have gone to May 2016. Thank you. We have been토... Now we have gone through... contradiction... Now we have the... blocking 캐릭터... Now, we have to go to naturalMy car about to do it. Now we can have... There, there, everything here and here. The thing happened we have been thinking... You can't remember there. ... ... ... ... ... It does not say Nummer-