Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-28
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Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South

I absolutely acknowledge that the energy shock and the particular energy crisis we are now in are, of course, caused by international events, in particular Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war on Iran. We are all conscious of that. The question is how we respond. There are two things. First, the Taoiseach acknowledges that systemic change is needed; I think he did in his response to me. Absolutely, I agree. We need to change the way we work. We need to change the way we do business. We need to change our reliance on fossil fuels. Therefore, we need that renewables revolution. The Taoiseach did not respond on that. Yes, it is welcome to see measures on retrofitting, but the upfront costs of fitting solar panels, for example, or installing heat pumps are massive for households, and there is far too little available. The roll-out of renewables and our capacity to generate energy through onshore and offshore wind is far too slow. We in opposition have supported efforts by the Government to speed up the pace, but we are seeing so little being done on what should be a huge thing for us, that is, the roll-out of offshore and onshore wind generating capacity.
The second thing to say is that there are consequences-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-28