Where there are excess profits, which is Deputy Murphy's concern, going to the energy industry-----

The real concern among members of the public is that they should not pay too much. The best way of addressing that, be it in a fossil fuel company, from which we will seek a contribution to feed back to the Irish public, or on the----

-----electricity side where we will do the same, is through the mechanisms I mentioned, specifically the effective windfall taxes we have within the European Union mechanism. With regard to changing things, were it so easy that we could address and solve all of these problems with a flick of a switch or at a stroke of a pen whereby the regulator has a different position. I do not believe that would necessarily address the current problem or crisis. We are seeing a number of energy companies exiting rather than ente…

The example of what we did on central heating is a very good one. It is fascinating to look at the census from the early 1960s which shows that about half of Irish homes did not have running water or an inside toilet.

By the mid or late 1980s, as Deputy Healy-Rae said, around 95% of houses had central heating. There was an incredible change over two and a half or three decades. We are going to have a similar change in the next two and a half or three decades. We have to do it. We know we have to switch from the use of fossil fuels to stop the planet from burning. Another advantage of this is that we will switch to our own natural resources and local fuel. We will still be using central heating systems. In many cases, we will sti…

What I am listening to at the moment is the people in the industry who are investing at scale and at speed. The Whitegate oil refinery, which we have retained, is important at this difficult time and is a strategic holding and business that gives us access to fuel supplies.

It has said that the approach and policy we are taking will involve using some of the waste products and it can invest and use them in the transport fuel supply chain. This is the most secure and best investment but not the only one. We are going to invest massively in hydrogen and in ammonia in Cork and Shannon because that is where the offshore renewable power will come ashore. At the industry conference held this morning, it was evident that this is where the money, investment and jobs are going. This is where p…

Tá brón orm mar níl ach beagán Gaeilge agam agus ní raibh mé ábalta gach focal a thuiscint ach but if I understand the Deputy's question correctly, it addresses the issue of the future of our islands and how we, as a Government and people, can ensure they thrive. I will give a number of reflections on that issue. I had the pleasure of meeting Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann in the past year. I am very familiar with many of the islands as I spend a great deal of time on a variety of them, which I find to be a very rew…

My understanding is that the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands visited Bere Island last week or two weeks ago. I will be honest and say that the members of the committee also need to advise, to recommend and to come forward with regard to the specific policy decision and what the approach is.

My understanding is that the Minister and the Department are considering that. They should take into account what the Oireachtas committee said, what the island people are saying and any further and other evidence that they can present. I mentioned the experience I have had on the islands not to try to divert but to try to use that experience as I see it to try to inform that debate. As I said, I think we are at a point where we could very much turn the tide in favour of people living on our islands and that being …

I share the Deputy’s abhorrence of what happened in Cherry Orchard the other night. In response to his question on what the State can do and is doing, first, in response to a number of incidents earlier this year, both Cherry Orchard and Ballyfermot local Garda management immediately enhanced their high-visibility policing presence, together with the support and assistance of the Dublin Metropolitan Region regional public order unit over the course of a number of weekends. This high visibility is continuing. I am a…

We have to address this issue and particularly the related issue of homelessness. There are a number of measures that the Government is looking at. Change is planned on the advertising of property in short-let Airbnb-type facilities in terms of restrictions to make sure those types of properties come back into the rented sector. There are changes to the rules so people are now entitled to three months notice rather than the previous 28 days, even in short lets, to avoid someone being evicted through that short-term…

First, I acknowledge the important, critical and great work that everyone in the section 39 organisations does. I recognise the example of their critical role in that even in this period of strife, their union representatives, as I understand, are looking to ensure essential services continue and that they minimise the impact on service users and their families. Such an impact is not their intent in any way. There is a real issue regarding these workers' pay and structural arrangements and how they are organised. O…

There is a whole series of emergency measures we need to take, including direct payments to households, investing in social welfare contributions, emergency support measures for business and the long list of measures, which I will not read out again, to protect the most vulnerable customers, all of which have been done on an emergency basis. If we try to reconfigure our entire energy system by way of emergency legislation, I do not believe we would get it right. We are right to address the immediate needs of househ…

It is not easy in a single piece of legislation to address the entire consequences of this war for our energy system. We are better to do that in a co-ordinated way.

I agree with the Deputy that one of the responses to this issue must be the prioritisation of community policy. Some of the actions I mentioned earlier regarding Cherry Orchard could equally apply in towns and cities right across the country. I agree that one of the key investments we should make within the €2 billion in funding that was provided to An Garda Síochána in budget 2022 is in community policing. I recommend that the Commissioner and his officers look at how we can reinforce the spending on the community…

I would be careful about committing to a change to the Constitution, upon which we should reflect. I do not disagree with the sentiment or intention of the Irish Neutrality League but I would be very slow to sign up to it. We have learned in this House that when it comes to constitutional reform, it is always best to think, first, what is the question and then what is the answer and the wording. That is not something that is easily or quickly done. Something I believe in and am proud of is that our seat on the UN S…

Proposals were discussed at the Energy Council on 9 September and the Commission produced more specific proposals on 14 September. The Energy Council will meet again on 30 September, when I expect us to sign off on the proposals. They are not finalised and discussions are still going on at COREPER but the broad outline is clear. We will seek to take that windfall gain from the electricity markets from those generators that are not generating gas, where there is a surplus. The Commissioner is suggesting that should …

The solidarity payment on fossil fuels is slightly different. It has greater complexity for us for a number of reasons but the basic principles should apply.

I think transport is going to be the most challenging when it comes to energy, such is the scale of investment going into alternatives. It is the same with land use but, in that case, I believe the market will bring us a long way towards where we need to go. In transport, however, it is difficult because we are dealing with patterns that have been baked in more than 50 or 60 years of dispersed settlement. We will do this in four ways: by switching fuels towards electricity and those types of biofuels I mentioned ea…