When reading the CEPA report, which is comprehensive, it is important to realise it recognises we need a range of different options for energy security. We need not just gas storage but also other technologies, such as pumped storage and battery storage. The report also recognises that further interconnection, especially in respect of our electricity markets, will give us greater stability and security in this regard. Equally, as Deputy Smith said, it also recognises that we must be clever in how we manage demand. …

The Government allocated €244 million to fund the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, residential, community and solar PV schemes this year. This budget enabled the introduction of a range of new measures to make it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake energy upgrades as well as to better target supports for those most in need. Data from the SEAI show that since the launch of the new measures in February, demand across the retrofit schemes has been exceptionally high. As of the end of l…

Starting with the warmer homes energy aspect, it is not a case where we are just getting above the present standard and just going from a C rating to a B2. We are specifically targeting those houses that most need improvement, namely, those built before 1993. They must also have a present building energy rating, BER, of E, F or G. Again, regarding how the scheme has changed, we have gone from where it might have typically involved a grant of €1,000 or €2,000 to a situation now where the average spending this year, …

I appreciate Deputy O'Rourke's argument, but I must say it runs directly contrary to what Deputy O'Reilly from Sinn Féin said only half an hour or 20 minutes ago.

She accused us of not being on the same page because we were giving grants to houses that could afford-----

She did.

The record will show that is exactly what she said.

She was having a cut at us for providing grants for better-off houses. It cannot be both ways. Do we agree with the position of Deputy O'Reilly or that of Deputy O'Rourke? My own-----

Deputy O'Reilly was saying we should not be giving any grants-----

What the Deputy is saying is we should give 100% grants. I believe this-----

I will tell-----

What we agree on is this. This 80% grant or the investment in cavity insulation is something 500,000 houses could benefit from and it is the best and most immediate thing any household can do. It will bring a 25% cut in bills and a payback time of less than a year. As I said in my earlier contribution, banks, credit unions and others will lend for this sort of one-year investment.

If I was to go up to a 100% grant, I fear Deputy O'Reilly would come back and say I was helping the wealthy and not doing the right thing-----

-----as she said only half an hour ago.

I will read out some of the response because it has been thought through. The first message is that the current high prices are caused by the war in Ukraine. I hope that is agreed by everyone in this House. Failure to understand that is really challenging because I do not see any other explanation. We face particular challenges because we are a price taker on international markets and Irish electricity and gas prices have historically been affected by long-standing drivers such as geographical isolation, dispersed …

Those high profits and high prices are because the price of gas is ten times its historical average.

If I can answer the Deputy's question as to what to do about those profits, certain generators who are not generating with gas will get a supernormal profit because the market price is way above their production price cost. We are working with the European Union, which is the appropriate way to do it. We address this as a wartime measure in response to what the Russian Government is doing by taking some of that excess profit in an intermarginal price system and bringing that back to the public. That is not agreed y…

To answer the Deputy's question as to why we are above the other European countries in price levels, it is because we are so dependent on fossil fuels. Other than the Corrib gas field, we do not have any of those fossil fuels. We have to import them all. It is because we have the most dispersed population in Europe and the price of getting electricity and getting gas and getting other energy to a dispersed population is much more expensive than to a concentrated one. That is a reality. Lastly, it is because of the …

The EU nature restoration law, as proposed, seeks to repair European habitats that are in poor condition and bring back nature to all ecosystems. The aim is for nature restoration measures to apply to a proportion of the EU's land and sea areas by 2030 and to eventually extend these measures to all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. In addition, there are proposals from the EU Commission to reduce the use and risk of chemical pesticides and a new soil health law to significantly improve the state of soils a…

I was down in Kerry last week, as it happens.