"Green" policies are destroying this country

very interesting talk, and i suspect both are right, keen is a strong believer nuclear is also critically needed, not just over materials issues, but for other reasons also

If you are living in dreamland or happy to import nuclear energy to make up a shortfall forever using interconnectors it`s not. It`s more simplistic than simple.

We have one pumped storage facility in Ireland Turlough Hill and it has been there since 1974. What stage of construction are all these others we will require at ?

The reason we do not have more is because there is no such thing as perpetual motion. It takes more energy to pump water up a mountain than the energy it will generate. There is also the problem that the energy used to pump water is off peak, the same time you are charging those millions of cars and everything else you are talking about using off peak energy for.

You are now in the dreamland of energy production excessive to our needs, when we are looking due to the present policy of not having enough, when just one plant is out for maintenance.

Workes the same way for every party, but if you are only polling 7% nationally then your chances of winning seats in each constituency are slim. The Green`s are polling 7% because there are a few constituencies where they have enough of the percentage of the vote to win a seat. For the vast majority of constituencies they are not even close. The Healy Rae`s are the same where Kerry are concerned, but I haven`t seen anyone make a claim their policies are representative of the nation as a whole.

Of course we should have one small modern nuclear power plant on the island. When we get the 6 back, we'll put it in Carrickfergus or Larne.

You do not understand what I said about risk, risk has two components - the chance of an accident and the consequence of an accident. You can never reduce the consequence of an accident to an acceptable level with nuclear - it will always cost to much if it happens. Japan has learnt the hard way that an accident costs billions upon billions of lost value and clean up costs and they will be living with their crisis for decades/centuries. Lets repeat that - you can never make nuclear risk free.

The sad fact is that nuclear exists and France have a lot of it. I am a pragmatist so it would be stupid to refuse to use their surplus since it exists - but that is not an argument in favour of proliferation of Nuclear.

only problem is, we ve no way of knowing this will be the case in the future, we ve no idea if european relations will remain to be in the future, and the fact, europe as a whole is slowly shutting down its reactors, so...... we re back to that eggs situation again!

The GP doesn't have to win a seat in each constituency to get into a coalition government.

You said earlier -

"Using a poll that shows support for the greens at 7% while ignoring that 93% want nothing to do with them."

Clearly more than the 7% are giving lower preferences to the GP and expressing support for the other parties who are in coalition with them.

Furthermore as others have pointed out policies to address climate change are a feature of almost all manifestoes.

The problem with the current crop of pretend Greens is that they have broken the first principle of Carbon Taxes and treated it as a source of tax revenue. Carbon taxes are meant to be revenue neutral so that every penny that is taken in is given back in incentives for people to reduce emissions. The FG/FF/Greens have broken trust on this one and it will be very difficult to win it back again.

They did the same with Water charges (ultimately a good thing to charge for water) but they didn't acknowledge that we already paid for our water in motor taxes among other things and give back the cash they were already taking to pay for water.

Can you not even see the hyprocrisy in your own posts ?

You are on here banging away about us not doing our bit, taking advantage of others, being anti nuclear and showing the rest how it should be done if they only followed our example while at the same time happy to see we can fall back on France for nuclear power when we need it.

Of course you are favouring proliferation if you are creating a market where France are producing more nuclear power than they need for their domestic use. That`s just simple economics. Something the Green`s have very little interest in or a clue about apparently.

It could be worse though. If you were encouraging the French to go as far green as you are encouraging us to, there would be no surplus to plug into.

You have hit the nail on the head. Eamon Ryan and the Greens don't understand normal life outside Dublin. I would much rather see the Mica homeowners get money than spending 365 million a year on cyclelanes. That's nearly 2 billion over lifetime of government. These are the crazy decisions being made.

Will you ever get over yourself. I`m far from an anti-green fanatic and when it comes to pragmatism you haven`t the slighest idea.

Pragmatism is dealing with problems or situations that focuses on practical approahes and solutio. Ones that will actually work in practice rather than just looking ideal in theory. You are more an idealist than a pragmatist, but even on that you are an idealist that is promoting your ideal for here while quite happy to take advantage of others not sharing this ideal of yours when it suits. IMO that is nothing more than idealist hypocrisy

The largest pumped storage installation humanity has ever constructed would power this country for a grand total of about eight hours.