I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I welcome the opportunity to move this Bill on Second Stage. I thank my co-sponsors, Deputies Quinlivan, Cronin and Guirke. I note the Government amendment which states that this Bill will be deemed to have been read a second time this day six months, that is, in January 2023. I understand the rationale for this amendment and hope the Government will have accelerated its planning in the area of green hydrogen by that time and that it will have produced a comprehens…

I thank Deputies Quinlivan, Cronin and Guirke for co-sponsoring the Bill. I thank all those who contributed to a good debate tonight. I thank the Minister for being here in person. There are a number of things to take forward. There are key areas where climate action is clearly in the social and economic interest of people and, of course, in the environmental interest of people and the planet. We need to go after that low-hanging fruit rather than constantly framing climate action as the stick without providing peo…

In the interests of brevity, I will make a quick point just to have it on the record again. We dealt with the EirGrid Bill. Pre-legislative scrutiny was waived, under protest, on Second Stage and Committee Stage. We in the Opposition were pontificated to. We were told we had ample time and opportunity to discuss matters but we most certainly had not. Every time we engaged on the Bill, there was additional information. Gaps in the information remain. Not only that but because of the rushed nature of the process, the…

I thank the Minister of State for his response on the perverse situation in respect of PET. I want to tease out his response a little. We talk about recycling but what we do in Ireland is collect and separate. We have a small recycling capacity. Shabra Plastics is an example of that in the PET area. Because of the incentives within the market, the subsidies on the one hand and the taxes elsewhere, there is a risk that the small industry in existence will be uncompetitive and will struggle to be sustained. Those lev…

The Minister of State dealt with one arm of my contribution, which was the issue of virgin plastic tax elsewhere. We need to keep an eye on that. The point is that we are subsidising companies here and supporting them financially to export. They are being subsidised to the point that the business model means it is profitable to export. We are not competitive here and we are not competitive in other markets either. This is the solution. If the Government is not going to introduce a virgin plastic tax here, will it t…

I will not take up any more time. The incentive is there because of the market conditions. Effectively we are subsidising the export. It is not deliberately a subsidy for export. I will come back with more details. I would appreciate if the Minister of State would take a personal interest in this issue.

There are two really important factors at play. The first is about lobbying and the relationship between former officials, lobbyists, Ministers, senior Government officials, advisers, and in this case, Uber and the Fine Gael Party, in addition to the privileged access lobbying affords. Revelations clearly indicate that not all of the lobbying was documented or revealed, and recording of such details was deliberately avoided. The second factor is transport policy. The NTA is actively encouraging people into the taxi…

The Minister of State did not touch on the lobbying issue at all. There is much that needs to be done in that regard. My colleague, Deputy Mairéad Farrell, introduced the Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2020, which the Government kicked down the road. Among other matters, this is something to which the Government must revert. I am reading significantly into the Minister of State's final comment that the Department and the NTA are both committed to current transport policy. In fairness, Mr. Hugh Creegan of t…

I thank Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue for discussion. I am sorry I have to raise it. I also thank the Minister of State for coming to the House on a Thursday evening. As I said, I am sorry I have to raise this issue. Stamullen Football Club is located in Stamullen, County Meath. It has 20 teams, 320 players and 750 members. It is a very busy, active and successful club. It has academy and senior teams, boys' and girls' teams, and men’s and women’s teams. It also has an after-school academy tied in with t…

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. He has put his finger on it in terms of the gap that exists. I am sure there are communities in his constituency that are similar to this one. There was significant residential development during the Celtic tiger. A new county development plan for County Meath went though the High Court and has just been adopted. It significantly caps the amount of residential development in Stamullen. The previous model, which was not a successful one, was a developer-led model that inv…

I think there has been an accounting mechanism for moving moneys from communications, as I understand it, to energy. Will the Minister outline the detail of that? How much will it be and how will it be progressed? Will it be through a Supplementary Estimate perhaps? In addition, we hear the PSO reduction on residential bills will be in the region of €75. Has the Minister estimated the impact of the cost of the full suite of these proposals? What will be the impact of the additional generation capacity on the defici…

I want to come back to the question of which Vote the funding is coming from and under what heading. I understand the Minister will present before the Committee on Transport and Communications for this reason. Is this for the full €350 million that is estimated? What impact will that have in regard to the communications budget and from where is this money coming? Are there projects that would otherwise have been delivered that will now be underfunded? Will the Minister clarify those points?

I move amendment No. 1: In page 4, line 35, after “thereto” to insert the following: “, with priority given to renewables, zero or low carbon electricity generation options or those most easily retrofitted into zero or low-carbon alternatives in the future”. What I want to do in this amendment is to ensure there is a commitment to consideration of the types of technologies that EirGrid is going to enter into agreement on and procure, and that there should be a prioritisation for technologies that are either renewab…

Within those considerations, and as the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, said last night, some may be distillate and some may be gas, all things being equal, the State and EirGrid must surely go for the lower emissions alternative. I hear the Minister's point but it is important to state that the lower emissions alternative must be given priority, and if there is an option to go for hydrogen-ready or technologies that are adaptable, they need to be given priority. Otherwise the decisions the State and EirGri…

I echo many of those comments and sentiments from Deputy Smith. We have an amendment grouped with this. I entirely agree that the suggestion that data centres are not a significant part of the issue is complete spin and nonsense. It is disingenuous for anyone to make that statement. In fairness to the Minister of State who was here last night, he pointed to three main reasons we are where we are. One was the non-delivery of previously contracted capacity. We have heard from CRU. CRU had lessons to learn. There shou…

I want to put on the record, as I have done before, an issue that is a cause of frustration. When I raise issues with the Minister or the Department, I am often pointed towards a body at arm's length, whether that is the CRU, EirGrid or some other organisation with responsibility. Especially in the context of the CRU, there is always a line in the response that the body is not responsible to the Minister or the Department, but to the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. I am a member of that joint com…

Will the Minister come back to the point about the prospect of an economic, environmental and energy security impact risk analysis for current and planned data centres? All the issues that have been raised need to be addressed and such an analysis would be a suitable vehicle to address them.

I would like to register my concern at the rushed nature of this Bill. Deputies only got sight of the Bill last Tuesday and it has not undergone any pre-legislative scrutiny, although we had a briefing on it, which was welcome. We in Sinn Féin and others in opposition had other important questions we wanted answered and we wanted to hear from stakeholders. There are still very many unanswered questions but we did not have the opportunity to deal with them. As is often the case, the Government had the numbers so pre…

The Government could have done that last September.

I asked a pile of questions. What is Deputy Farrell talking about?