Bryan Wall

It’s perhaps something of an understatement to say Eoghan Murphy is not exactly flavour of the month these days. Not only is he facing  public ire over the homeless crisis, but some political pundits are even going as far as to claim he has been the worst Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government in the past 20 years. It’s also certainly not an exaggeration to describe Village magazine as one of his most vocal detractors since he took over the portfolio in the summer of 2017. But regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with his policies, it’s a measure of the man’s character that he readily agreed to sit down for this in-depth interview while other senior politicians in the firing line wouldn’t have even bothered picking up the phone. If nothing else, he deserves credit for exuding grace under pressure. Jason O’Toole: Were you always a Fine Gael-er? Eoghan Murphy: No, I wasn’t. I don’t come from a Fine Gael family. We were interested in politics. We discussed it as a family. It wasn’t until I was 26  – and I was living and working abroad and things were starting to decline here – that I thought about coming home and getting involved in politics. I was working in policy in Vienna and I was writing speeches for the head of the organisation there. And as I thought about it, I met Enda Kenny by chance in London and he was quite influential in terms of persuading me to get involved in politics. You’re now a close confidant of Kenny’s successor, Leo Varadkar. Certainly, as we worked through the campaign planning, we developed a stronger rapport. He’s also big on honesty. If you’re honest with him, he will respond in kind. During the leadership campaign we became more personally close as you do when you’re working long hours directly with someone, but it’s difficult now with such busy jobs to find time to talk about things that aren’t work, but we try. He knows my family and there isn’t much he wouldn’t know about me. First and foremost, he’s the Taoiseach and I’m the Housing Minister, and we will step out of that relationship only on occasion. Like at Tom and Jen’s wedding recently. That was great fun, we were both just there as friends of the bride and groom and so we were able to relax a bit.       Some tabloids recently took an interest in your personal life after you were photographed at TD Tom Neville’s wedding with your date. It must be very uncomfortable to open up a paper on a Sunday morning and see speculation about your love life? I don’t pay any attention to it. My focus is on my job. When I get time to myself, which is rare, I like to spend it with friends and family, go for a run, that type of thing. Is politics like a drug for you? It’s not a drug for me, no. But it is a vocation. I didn’t expect that when I first became involved –that it would end up consuming all my time and energy. I didn’t think I could get any busier as junior Finance Minister but Housing is another level altogether. And it’s not just Housing – planning, local government, water, emergency weather management. It’s very personal for me because it’s been my daily life for more than two years now. And people don’t really make a distinction between you and your job –you just are the Housing Minister, Saturday night, Christmas Eve, whenever. That’s not a complaint. Even if people weren’t like that I don’t think it could be any other way for me. Elections and campaigns and that side of politics is different though, maybe a bit more like what you’re asking. I’m very into that. The strategy, the execution. Whenever I go places, be it Ardee or Ballina, I want to know what’s happening on the ground, how the party stands, who is up-and-coming, what’s the competition like. That’s the bloodsport side of politics and it’s kind of addictive, even though that’s not why I’m in it. Would you like to be Taoiseach some day? It would be a real honour certainly. But when I took this job I said it would likely be the most important one I would have in public life, and I believe that. That’s still my ambition. I don’t have one eye on another Department or on the leadership of my own party. I intend on fixing the crisis in housing – that’s my ambition. When will we see an election? I don’t know. I don’t think it will be until the middle of next year at the earliest. The Taoiseach’s been very clear that he doesn’t foresee the need for an election before the summer of 2020. I think Micheál Martin has almost agreed to that. Do you think a Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil  coalition could work? I think the current coalition is working very well, y’know. We’ve had to handle some difficult situations – Brexit being one, which is ongoing –and we are doing that as a minority government when many thought minority government couldn’t work. I’ve huge time for Finian McGrath and all of my independent colleagues and the contribution they make to government is significant. If in the future coalition with Fianna Fáil had to work then it would and I’d go with that, but I think everyone’s focus is very much on doing the job now, and continuing as an effective government in to next year and possibly longer. Because obviously we still have a lot of work to do and plans to see through. In the past, the so-called poisoned chalice for politicians used to be the Department of Health but it feels like it’s your Department these days. I think anyone who might come into politics and look at a Department and see it as a poisoned chalice shouldn’t be in politics.

IRISH AGRICULTURAL policy over the past decade has generated unsustainable levels of dairy and beef production. The national herd is approaching 8 million in number and each cow produces 2 tonnes of harmful emissions per year. Industrial-scale farming has resulted in serious climate and national food-security issues which now must be addressed by incentivising the diversification of agricultural land-use and agricultural food production. The search for viable alternatives, capable of supporting Ireland’s rural economy, has led many farmers to consider the potentials of hemp. Hemp is a high value, cash crop with massive economic potential and it can also deliver substantial environmental benefits. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp and the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil. Henry Ford experimented with hemp to build car bodies. But it was as good as prohibited in the United States by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, until it was in effect revoked in December. Hemp is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. Its tight-spacing squeezes out weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It produces up to four tonnes per acre per year. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop. Hemp thrives without chemical additives or fertilisers and requires minimal use of natural resources. When used as a break crop, hemp significantly increases the yield of rotation crops and as biomass it is a fully renewable energy resource. Hemp promotes biodiversity and ecosystem health in marine environments as well as on land. And a growing body of international research also demonstrates that commercial hemp farming has a significant positive impact on the regeneration of rural communities. Hemp absorbs more CO2 per hectare than any forest or commercial crop – it is the ideal carbon sink. Its bioremediation and soil-decontamination potential is prolific and its capacity to impact industrial carbon emissions is immense. Hemp is the most complete plant-based protein we have, it contains all nine essential amino acids and has considerable nutritional, health and medicinal properties. Outside of its enormous potential as biofuel, hemp is currently used in construction, car manufacturing, paper, food, animal-bedding, clothing, drinks, health, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, and there are solid indicators that it will replace other carbon intensive processing in a further range of industrial applications. Petrol-based fibreglass, for example, is more than 400% more expensive to produce than hemp-based fibreglass of superior strength and quality. Rapid advances in hemp technology are bringing production costs well below carbon-based equivalents and the industry is now the fastest growing employment provider in the US, outperforming the US tech industry by a ratio of 2:1 in 2017. The rapid growth of global hemp markets has not by and large followed sustainable development pathways and huge environmental benefits have been squandered. Global policy and regulatory reforms aimed at removing historical barriers to trade – hemp is an agricultural crop with no narcotic value but is treated as a controlled substance – have tended to militate against small, high-quality producers and to favour the growth of corporate actors in the pharmaceutical, drinks and tobacco industries. Ireland is very well suited to hemp and last year, agricultural activity in the Irish hemp sector increased by more than 200% and over the past few weeks there has been another huge increase in the number of Irish farmers enquiring about HPRA hemp-licencing procedures. Many of these are looking to diversify and view hemp as a viable alternative to carbon-intensive dairy and beef production. However, the lack of even the most rudimentary supply chain to support the growth potential is hugely concerning. Insufficient technological capabilities and over-restrictive regulatory requirements limit the Irish hemp industry’s capacity to benefit the environment. They fuel negative public perceptions and are constructive barriers to a full realisation of hemp’s environmental potential. Consequently, the Irish hemp industry is perilously underdeveloped and without state support it will not survive the attentions of global giants now poised to enter the European market. The development of new agricultural systems capable of realising Ireland’s climate transition goals must be supported by financial mechanisms to enable Irish farmers to deliver on environmental policy objectives. The hemp industry requires coordinated development of supply-chain infrastructure to enable a progressive transition toward fully integrated farming and industrial practice consistent with environmental ethics, and capable of realising climate policy objectives. Producer and processor incentives will also be needed to underpin an incubation period, until markets and supply-chains are mature enough to support market-led growth. Measures will be required to educate and inform the public and to promote European and global market penetration of Irish hemp products. It is also hugely important that the forthcoming legislation to allow for access to medical cannabis also protects the environmental, social and rural economic potentials of the Irish hemp industry. Hemp is the wonder material for our times. It needs only a fair regulatory tail wind.

WE NEED to think big and green about energy in our efforts to contain carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. Renewable energy should be generated where there is capacity (e.g. Ireland – wind, wave, tidal; Spain – thermal, Iceland – geothermal). The challenge faced by Europe and Ireland especially is how to increase the share of intermittent renewable energy – that, like wind, is not always present – to meet demand in North-West Europe. This is especially challenging when our electricity grid is at maximum capacity and where expanding grid capacity will require major capital cost. This lack of grid capacity is the biggest limiting factor in increasing renewable-energy supply in Ireland both North and South. The grid cannot take more renewables. Rural and isolated communities face unique energy issues relating to efficiency, reliability and sustainability. This is commonly due to dependency on non-local and fossil-fuel energy supply, low electricity-grid capacity and limited or no connection to wider grids. As a result these communities have higher than average carbon emissions and are more vulnerable to fluctuating fuel prices. Renewable energy sources continue to increase their share of installed capacity worldwide. In Ireland 42% of electricity should be from renewables by next year but in fact only around 30% will be. Integration of renewables, in conjunction with increased energy efficiency and other low-carbon technologies, such as carbon capture and better energy storage (batteries), constitutes the best opportunity to achieve energy sustainability. They also constitute the best option to avert the risks that conventional non-renewable sources pose to health, geopolitics, the economy and the environment. As required by their commitments to the Paris Agreement of 2015, 175 parties have created national renewable energy action plans (NREAPs). These plans involve increasing renewable energy penetration targets for the electricity, heating and cooling, and transport, sectors. These three sectors alone account for 20%, 40% and 40% respectively of total end-use energy demand worldwide. And to shift from a hydrocarbon-based economy to a renewable one, there is a need for clean sustainable energy carriers. Energy carriers allow renewable sources to supply different forms of energy demand across different sectors. Hydrogen is one of these carriers that has attracted much support from across many countries across the globe. In fact, it has the potential to become one of the main energy carriers of the future as it can be easily produced using renewable energy, stored using commercially available technologies and used throughout the entire energy system. The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier, however, has been hindered by specific challenges that need to be addressed. The Interreg North West Europe-funded project GenComm led by Belfast Metropolitan College is seeking to address the barriers preventing the greater integration of renewables into our energy matrix and to navigate a new energy pathway to energy security. GenComm (GENerating energy secure COMMunities); is a Smart Hydrogen-Integrated renewable energy, generation and storage project designed to develop a new model for exploiting generated electricity from renewable sources to provide energy security for remote communities. Every community in the NWE region (whether or not remote) consumes the big three: Power, Heat and Transportation Fuel. The GenComm project through three renewable energy pilot schemes, each producing hydrogen from a renewable source – Anaerobic Digestion, Solar and Wind – will demonstrate how hydrogen as an energy carrier can be the new energy pathway and overcome the current obstacles blocking greater utilisation of renewable energy in our energy consumption matrix. The idea is to use the excess renewable energy, transforming and storing it as a Hydrogen Gas and then using this as an energy carrier for multiple uses within the energy-demand spectrum. Hydrogen can be produced from renewable electricity through electrolysis. We can have safe, clean, reliable H2 energy storage in European communities. Learning from the experience with the plants, technical and financial models will be developed, ultimately making hydrogen a commercially viable and sustainable energy medium.