Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications
SEAI – Chairperson designate Julie O’Neill
Wednesday 1 July 2015
Introductory remarks
At the outset, I want to thank the Committee for the invitation to attend this meeting today. I have been proposed by the Minister for Communications Energy and Natural Resources, Alex WhiteT.D to serve as Chairperson of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Irelandand, in that context, I welcome this opportunity to meet with the Committee. I will begin by summarising my own career and explaining why I applied for membership of the board before setting out my vision and priorities for the Authority.
Career summary
I spent the first 37 years of my career as a civil servant, joining straight from school as a junior executive officer in 1972 at a time when the marriage bar was still in place. Igradually worked my way up and across a range of Departments that included the Revenue Commissioners, the Departments of Public Service, Finance, Social Welfare, Tourism, Sport and Recreation and the Office of the Tanaiste during a period of great change in the Irish economy and society. I was very privileged to have a wide and varied public service career which gave me the opportunity to work with many different Ministers and political parties and to contribute to strategic policy development and its implementation across eight government Departments.
I hold a B Comm from UCD, an MSc in Policy Analysis from Trinity College and I am a member of the Institute of Directors. I have recently been designated as a Certified Bank Director by the Institute of Banking following completion of their corporate governance programme.
In October 2001 I was appointed Secretary General of the Department of Marine and Natural Resources through the Top Level Appointments Committee process. In June 2002 I was re-assigned, following a change of Government, to the newly formed Department of Transport where one of my many challenges was to successfully merge elements of three Government Departments to create one with streamlined polices for Ireland’s transport infrastructure and services and a clear focus on delivery.
On completion of my term of office as Secretary General in 2009 I left the civil service and since then I have focussed my efforts on harnessing energies and skills across the private, public and not for profit sectors to promote sustainable business growth into and out of Ireland. I have undertaken some strategic management consultancy work in a personal capacity through my own business Join the Dots. In more recent years, I have concentrated primarily on a limited number of non-executive board appointments where I believe I can make a contribution.
During my time as Secretary General, I developed and have maintained a keen interest in the potential of sustainable energy to contribute to meeting the challenges and opportunities facing Ireland economically, socially and environmentally. Attending Cabinet Committee meetings on Infrastructure and Climate Change exposed me to the breadth of policy perspectives and the challenge of finding the synergies between renewable energy targets and other policy goals. While in the Department of Transport, I oversaw the preparation of Smarter Travel - a challenging, long-term strategy for implementing sustainable transport policy and a first for Ireland.
In 2011, I answered an advertisement by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources seeking expressions of interest in becoming a member of boards under their auspices. I asked to be considered for just one board – SEAI.Serving on the board for three years until September last year allowed me to build on the knowledge and insights I had gained as a Secretary General into broader areas of optimising energy efficiency and renewable energy and to contribute to the development of policy, strategy and governance at the Authority. I currently serve on two other boards. I was appointed as a non-executive director of Ryanair in December 2012 and of Permanent tsb in January 2014.
I have developed extensive experience in corporate governance in the public and private sector through my role as Secretary General, where I had responsibility for oversight of 37 State agencies and, more recently, through my roles as a non-executive director.
Earlier this year I applied to StateBoards.ie to be considered for re-appointment to the board of SEAI and indicated a willingness to serve as Chairperson of the Authority.
If my appointment as Chair is confirmed I will adopt a pragmatic approachto the role mindful of the wider challenges and trends facing the Irish economy and society of which sustainable energy is but one. I stand ready to draw on the specialist expertise within the Authority and around the board table and to act as a critical friend to the organisation, checking and challenging it as it moves forward.
Vision for sustainable energy
SEAI is Ireland’s national Authority for sustainable energy. Its legislative mission is to promote and assist the development and deployment of sustainable energy, i.e. energy efficiency and renewable energy. Sustainable energy offers a great opportunity for Ireland, highly dependent as we are on expensive, polluting, imported fossil fuels. The more we reduce energy waste, and the more we exploit our own rich, clean, indigenous energy resources, the greater the social, economic and employment benefits to the people of Ireland.
A global transition is underway to eliminate the unsustainabilities in our energy systems, most notably the huge environmental risk posed by climate change. This creates an important enterprise opportunity – as we move to address our own energy challenges, the solutions developed by Irish companies can be exported around the world as other states face the same imperatives.
Ireland has made significant progress in recent years. Since 1990:
-Our use of renewable energy has increased fivefold.
-Our carbon emissions per unit of electricity generated have more halved.
-The Irish housing stock has become 30% more energy efficient as a whole.
-The private car fleet has reduced its average unit emissions by 25%.
I am pleased to say that SEAI has played an important role in this progress. In the past six years the Authority has delivered:
-300,000 homes upgraded via Government grant support.
-550,000 homes now have Building Energy Ratings.
-Over 3,000 businesses have been supported in reducing their energy costs.
-Energy spend by the public sector itself has been reduced by €70m p.a. due to efficiency improvements.
More than 16,000 people are now employed in the sustainable energy sector in Ireland.
Overall, Ireland’s annual energy bills are €700m lower than they would be without recent progress on energy efficiency. Similarly, our imports of fossil fuels are over €400m lower every year due to our use of our local clean energy resources.
Nonetheless this is only the beginning of a long journey towards sustainability in energy. The Minister has signalled Irish policy intent to see the energy system largely decarbonised by 2050. This will require decisive actions across arange of sectors as Ireland endeavours to substantially reduce its energy use while also utilising its indigenous renewable energy sources. This will result in substantial benefits to the economy and society.SEAI will play a significant leadership role and be a catalyst for change in ensuring that the sustainable energy agenda is progressed.
The Minster intends to publish a new energy policy White Paper later this year. SEAI will follow this with a new strategic plan demonstrating how it will act to support the delivery of national policy goals in sustainable energy.
Governance
SEAI takes governance very seriously and is fully compliant with the Government’s Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies.The Committee may be aware that, in 2011, SEAI became the first organisation in Europe, either public or private to achieve SWiFT 3000 certification from the National Standards Authority of Ireland. This is an independent assessment of the corporate governance frameworks in organisations and SEAI has achieved best practice in this area. SEAI has maintained its certification status in subsequent reviews. The maintenance of this standard, recommended by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his Annual Report in 2009, provides assurance that SEAI operates to the highest international standards of corporate governance.
Personal Objectives
My personal objectives for the immediate future are to work with the new Board to ensure that we operate in the most efficient way possible, to provide strong guidance to SEAI and to monitor the activities and effectiveness of the organisation. We will immediately move to complete our new strategic plan to support Government’s energy policy goals. I want to ensure that the Board acts on a fully informed basis and makes its decisions in good faith. I want to maintain the best practice governance arrangements and ensure that SEAI is recognised as a well-run, efficient and strategic state body.
Can I end on a personal note. It was former President Mary Robinson who spoke about her fears about what kind of a world her grandchildren would inherit in 2050 if we fail to tackle climate change. In the last two years I have been blessed with a grandson born in China and a granddaughter in Australia. I think often about how we are the generation who will take the decisions that will impact on their world for better or worse and how our collective decisions will have global reach. I have seen at first hand the impact of climate change on China for instance and how that vast country is trying to grapple with its implications.
The arrival of my own grandchildren has re-energised my focus on playing my own modest part in eliminating the unsustainabilities in the world’s energy systems. I make this point because I believe it is possible to be a pragmatist but at the same time passionate about addressing the challenges of sustainable development. There are many things in the world that divide us but in this area, while there will inevitably be differences on the detail of policies to be pursued, I believe we all share a desire to leave the world in a better state for the next generations.
Again, I thank the Chair for the invitation and I will be pleased to answer any questions the Committee may have.
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