Fuel, Energy and Carbon Tax Relief: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Barry Heneghan (IND), Dublin Bay North I thank the Deputies for bringing this forward. I really love talking about energy and savings. Last year, the Minister of State confirmed an underspend of €120 million. I understand that since then the SEAI has been spending it. The Minister of State will have no doubt heard me talk about plug-in solar. I want to imagine how that €120 million could be used immediately for the Irish public. Let us take a ballpark figure - back-of-the-envelope stuff - of €120 million. If we could bulk buy plug-in solar systems, which are on average €500 per unit on the German market, through a Government scheme and could get a reduced price of, say, €400 per unit, which could immediately be plugged in, that €120 million would mean 300,000 plug-in solar systems. That is 300,000 households, including apartments and properties on which solar systems cannot be on the roof, which would immediately start seeing savings. Plug-in solar systems do not work like the ones on the roof. Electricity goes towards the path of least resistance, so it is for a fridge, washing machine or any appliance that is drawing electricity where one will see the savings. It is not like another system. At current electricity prices per kilowatt hour, and based on the UK savings of €230 per year - it legalised plug-in solar systems on 27 August - in the first year, from that €120 million, Irish households would see up to €70 million in savings. These plug-in solar systems last ten years. The payback and the return on investment is huge. I urge the Government to examine this. I know the Independents have been pushing it and supporting me on it. We need to examine every assessment, the BER requirements, and the simpler retrofit system. I understand we cannot print money out of nowhere and I understand the carbon tax provides for these systems of retrofitting but I would love the money to be spent more efficiently. We should ensure people get the benefits, and not through a BER system or through someone who knows they have a grant, so they will increase the price of a system because they know they have a Government grant. We saw it with the cycle to work scheme. Some bikes suddenly had a higher price because the seller knew people were getting a grant. We see it with the solar schemes and with the retrofit scheme with the council where people put the price up because there is a council grant. That price gouging and gazumping needs to be examined. SEAI approval for solar system grants needs to be examined so the benefit goes to the people, not the people installing the systems. We need to use infrastructure much more effectively, which is why I introduced to this House the Electricity Regulation (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2026. I look forward to people on all sides of the House supporting that. I have introduced it and I look forward to debating it in this House. With the private wire system, if we have a large-scale energy user, it should be easier for them to create on-site renewable energy and reduce costs. --- 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/2026-09-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-23