Ireland needed to position itself to cash in on an investment boom in clean energy technology, the minister responsible for the sector said yesterday.
Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan told a press conference that United Nations figures showed that up to $85 billion was being invested in developing this technology in 2007 and he said that he wanted to see a large part of this money coming to Ireland.
"There has been a green energy boom in Germany," he said. "Over 214,000 people have found jobs in the renewable energy sector in that country.
"Ireland has even greater natural resources in terms of wind and tidal energy than Germany."
He added that there was no reason why the Irish sector could not quadruple the 12,000 jobs for which it was already responsible.
Mr Ryan pointed out that the Government was committed to achieving a 20 per cent saving in energy and to using renewable sources for a third of our power by 2020. "These targets should be viewed as the start of our ambitions rather than their limits," he said.
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