Confidence in Government: Motion Dail Éireann — 2026-04-14 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow The energy price shock does also highlight the importance of reducing our dependence on imported fossil fuels and accelerating the climate transition. As long as we remain, in this country, dependent on fossil fuels from imports we risk our economic security and well-being. We are implementing the largest infrastructure programme in the history of the State and capital investment is projected to exceed €200 billion over the next decade. Thankfully, we are seeing clear progress now with almost half - 49% - of the country's electricity generated from renewables in March, 58,000 homes retrofitted last year and recent changes we have made to State schemes have seen a strong surge in applications, applications which are of course being funded by carbon tax, which some in this House seek to abolish. We are seeing record demand - over 29,000 applications already this year----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-14