Energy Policy
Dail Éireann — 2025-06-10
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Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

We are not going to annihilate our climate targets. This Government is as committed as the previous Government was to the energy transition, reducing emissions and working as hard as we can to achieve the targets that have been set.
On the expansion of renewable energy, 40% of all our energy last year was generated through renewables. We have made incredible progress in that regard, not just in the previous Government, but since 2005. In 2005, 7% of our electricity was generated by renewables, but that figure is 40% 20 years later. There are real opportunities with offshore renewables. There are now five projects out to further information and planning on the east coast and there has been the Government decision on the national DMAP to accelerate the delivery of offshore renewables.
Investment in our grid is absolutely critical. The level of investment over the term of this Government in our grid, both in distribution and generation, will be unprecedented. It will be multiples of the previous one. We must also ensure as a country that we remain at the cutting edge of new technologies.
Housing is an absolute priority for this Government. In the previous Government, we delivered 135,000 new homes. It was not a question of any sector above housing; housing was the number one priority and remains so. Under the national development plan review, however, the three main priorities are housing, water and energy. That is critical. I do not think anybody could or should disagree with that.
Look at the jobs underpinned by the investment in data and digital infrastructure in this country. Some of the largest employers in this country - in Deputy O'Gorman's own constituency - are located in Ireland because their data is located here, too. There is headroom to 2030 on already committed connection agreements, and that is not instead of housing. Those who present this as an issue of data centres getting connections instead of housing are simply not correct. It might be populist to say that but it is not correct.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-06-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:00:57+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-06-10