I believe they are on board and he is on board, and I believe Irish farmers want to play their part. As evidence, the new agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, the new mechanism to try to improve the environmental performance of farming, is massively oversubscribed. If we look at farm visits at the moment in the organic sector, there are very significant numbers coming in because they realise the high emissions alternative is increasingly expensive. Yes, I would have liked a higher target of 30% in agricult…

I referred to the energy security review in an earlier response, so I might immediately respond to the Deputy’s questions in his verbal presentation. With regard to backup generation, which is critical, we have all been watching this in the past week, when our wind power was very low because of the high pressure across north-west Europe. With the very cold conditions, there has been very high demand for electricity and, obviously, we have been very tight in terms of availability. I am glad to say our system has hel…

It is complicated because these are complicated issues and the timelines are tight. I would be interested to hear the Sinn Féin view on storage. I do not know if Sinn Féin was one of the 400 consultees in terms of which type to use. There are a variety of options. There is the option, which is coming back into view, of looking at the Kinsale gasfield, which had been used as a storage facility in the closing years of its operation and which has the right geological characteristics to be able to do that. We would hav…

The decision on that index-linking issue relates to the T-3 and T-4 auctions, which will not come next year, and it is in 2024 and 2025 when that generation was always expected to come. The generation that is due next year is the emergency procurement and emergency purchasing, which is done to close the gap from the failure of the auction back in 2019 to deliver a similar quantity of about 700 MW of power. As I said, I am very confident now that, on procurement, the first transfer of 250 MW will be delivered next y…

The Climate Action Plan 2021, which was published in November 2021, set out a detailed roadmap for meeting our climate ambition under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and included indicative ranges of emission reductions for each sector of the economy. The update for this year will follow on from the ambition set out in that and will reflect a strengthened climate governance framework. Recent EPA reports have indicated that, as we have emerged from Covid-19, our national emissions …

Those 10,500 ha of rewetted bogs are real, big and significant. Those 27,000 houses may not all be up to B2 standard but we knew that going into the year. That is what we set ourselves as a target, and we delivered it.

Those 700 MW of power are real. The Deputy is correct in that no one should be in any way complacent or have a false optimism, because the challenge and scale of the changes is so large and they will not be easy to deliver. We do not give up. Resilience is part of what we need in this whole climate approach. There are three real restrictions which are holding us back. One is in planning. We all know our planning system is not functioning or delivering for either the environment or for the development of our country…

If we take solar energy as just one example, we will be setting a target, as I set out in my convention speech two weeks ago, for something like 5 GW of solar-generated energy by 2025. That is as much renewable energy as we have ever developed in the past 20 years just in solar energy in the next three years, and this gives the scale of change. What makes me think we can actually do that? First, we are seeing those renewable auction systems, and there is a series of them. We learn as we go through each one, refinin…

As Ireland's maritime area is seven times the size of its landmass, and our location is at the edge of the Atlantic, I am critically aware that the potential for offshore renewable energy in Ireland is enormous. The offshore wind delivery task force is central to realising this potential and to meeting our targets. The goal of this task force is to accelerate and drive delivery of offshore wind by public bodies. To achieve this, it is developing a single system-wide plan, bringing together the work ongoing across G…

That is an absolute priority, not just for me but my Government colleagues across this House. The Deputy is right to focus on planning constraints being the real obstacle but An Bord Pleanála is now being resourced with the key expertise it needs in that section. A special unit and team of people are being assembled, with the maritime, ecology and marine planning skills that are needed. That will be aligned with the establishment of MARA, which will be done on time. We got that legislation through the House in time…

Last night, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, introduced legislation to allow us to do the real, essential development of An Bord Pleanála and to bring in new board members and so on. If I recall correctly, Sinn Féin voted against the legislation.

Sinn Féin abstained on it.

Sinn Féin did not vote against it. Fair enough. That legislation was critical and key. The Deputy is right in that I do not have the full detail on how many new people An Bord Pleanála has taken on. My view is we will have to massively increase the staffing of An Bord Pleanála and not just on the marine planning side. In the areas of transport, energy and housing, I see An Bord Pleanála resourcing as the greatest constraint on delivering what our people need. We will see reform of An Bord Pleanála in that it will b…

The Government's decision on sectoral emissions ceilings means we must reduce electricity emissions to approximately 3 million tonnes per annum by 2030 for the electricity sector, which is the steepest decline of all sectors in the economy. The targets are particularly challenging because of increasing electricity demand, including demand from data centres, and the electrification of heat and transport. Our principal tools to ensure our emissions are on track is to use renewable electricity to power our grid and to…

When this State enters a contract, it honours that contract. If contracts are breached, what can the Government be trusted to do in any other circumstances? Such breaches end up costing far more because people price in the risk associated with not being able to trust those who do not abide by contracts. It is therefore in our interests, as a State, to be honest and to abide by contracts we willingly enter into. That is not to say that we do not work with industry and tell it that it must play its part in helping us…

For certainty on this matter, I wrote to Gas Networks Ireland earlier in the year. It is not just about data centres. There is a whole range of areas in which Gas Networks Ireland must be told to stop expansion. These include the delivery of gas to new homes and new data centres because it will only cost us later as we will have to take that infrastructure out. We have made it clear to Gas Networks Ireland that this is not where we are going under Government strategy. We are going to move towards very large-scale d…

The Climate Action Plan 2021 set out policies, measures and actions to support the achievement of Ireland's legally-binding emissions reduction targets for 2030 and 2050. The 2021 plan was a cross-departmental effort with inputs and commitments from a range of Departments and State agencies. It provided indicative ranges of emissions reductions required for each sector of the economy to reach our 2030 target while also setting out the actions needed to deliver these targets. A review of the national development pla…

The targets are based on science, in respect of what was agreed in Paris in 2015, as well on what has been further agreed on by science since. If we do not, as an example of a developed country, halve our emissions this decade and get to net zero by 2050, then we risk going over certain tipping points where climate change will become a runaway phenomenon. It is impossible to know exactly where these tipping points are and the choice made in the context of the Paris agreement of the 1.5°C target, to not allow the gl…

I accept Deputy O'Connor is making his arguments. I hope I was not lecturing the Deputy but when he asked whether the targets were feasible, from my perspective it is important for us all to understand that while these targets are extremely challenging, the question is whether it is feasible for us to let this go and to take this risk. I do not think it is. This, then, forces us to be challenged and to reach these targets. In doing so, we must constantly review what we are doing in the context of the climate action…

I believe they can be but it is not certain. Earlier, I read out some of the analysis of what has happened in recent years. The increase last year in our transport, agriculture and power generation emissions makes it harder. Every year we see emissions continuing to increase makes the scale of the change required on the other side of the equation all the greater. I believe, however, that we can do this for a variety of reasons. First, this is going to be good for our country. Let us take agriculture as one example.…