The Deputy is right and I remember the role he played in those grant schemes. We favoured the islands for a number of reasons. The islands are demonstrable. They are particular geographic areas so one can show and measure effects. The likes of Inis Mór and the Aran Islands have been progressive and have showed leadership in demonstrating how communities can come together. The islands were also favoured because of the issue of energy security. Shipping fossil fuels - gas, oil, coal or any other fossil fuel - to an i…

I would be happy to meet the representatives of the organisation the Deputy mentioned to discuss this issue. If we do that, I would also like to broaden the discussion because I think there is a lot we can learn from the islands. As the Deputy mentioned, there are island-specific skills. Islanders have the ability to be innovative and flexible. They do a variety of tasks that often involve the community coming together. We want to protect and enhance that. We want to deploy some of those things on the mainland as w…

I will look at the threshold for turnover. I do not want to have such a complex bureaucratic system that we create a separate issue. However, if the turnover is a difficulty, we will look at it. There are a variety of issues when it comes to higher costs. Obviously, cargo ferry costs are one of the most significant. My Department, in a variety of ways, is keen to support, and is supporting, the islands, particularly in terms of management of those ferries and the contract arrangements around it.

The Government supports it. Regarding grant levels, a key grant would be for something like a heat pump. In that instance, the grant will stay fixed but the overall building costs may change. It is appropriate for us to have a mechanism whereby there is a set level in order that people have certainty. We do not want to create a completely different and separate system for the islands, which might end up adding expense. I will come back to the Deputy and the islanders' organisation to see what can be done outside a …

The National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, which is located in my Department, has a broad remit across the cybersecurity of Government, ICT infrastructure and critical national infrastructure. In the immediate aftermath of the ransomware attack on the HSE, the NCSC led the national response process and took measures to protect other critical infrastructure operators. This included rapidly disseminating indicators of compromise and relevant guidance to ensure the cybercriminals behind the cyberattack could not threat…

The Deputy is right to raise concerns about security on mobile telephone devices. Everyone, even within the industry, recognises it is a real issue. There is much public debate on issues such as Ministers having a Garda driver and so on. In discussions with officials recently, we all agreed we need Garda security on our mobile communications system as much as we need a Garda driver. That sort of protection and advice is being developed and put in place. No individual should assume his or her device is fully secure,…

As I said, I have been in touch with the director of the NCSC in recent days to get an update on the particular situation we are in at the moment. I agree with Deputy Stanton that we have to do more and we are looking and working in co-operation with network operators to improve our security and to make sure they maximise security on their networks. The NCSC publishes a lot of its material. It is well-regarded internationally because it is seen to be trustworthy and prompt in sharing information. A lot of its onlin…

There are over 276,000 premises in County Cork of which over 80,600 are within the NBP intervention area and they will receive access to high speed broadband under the NBP. Government investment in County Cork in the NBP will be in the order of €314 million. National Broadband Ireland, NBI, has made steady progress on delivery of the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the NBP. In County Cork, surveying is under way in the deployment area of Clonakilty and surveying is complete in the deployment areas of T…

I will make a broad point. The NBP is of critical importance and it is hugely important that we have the whole country covered but it is not the only investment that is taking place. There is huge investment taking place in a competitive market with operators like Eir, Virgin Media, SIRO and others. They are chasing after customers and investing all around the country and we are starting to see some of the benefits. The digital economy and society index is one of the key measures in Europe for the digital performan…

The point I was making to Deputy Gould is that we are seeing fierce competition between the other providers to get to customers because Eir is investing and significantly expanding and as I recall it had an additional 300,000 rural houses that it went to get to. Having done those it is moving to the next block and it is also moving into urban areas because it sees that it is at risk of losing business to the likes of SIRO, which has announced a major expansion in the number of houses it is targeting, as has Virgin …

It comes down to each individual house and that is how companies plan to roll out the network. In the timeframe that was mentioned we will go to a situation where the vast majority of houses, be they in rural or urban Ireland, will have access to fast fibre-optic cable broadband. That will position us well in the provision of public services, helping small businesses and as the Deputy rightly says, in responding to this Covid time when people can work from home.

The role of hydrogen and the actions needed for its development were considered as part of the development of the climate action plan 2021. The plan, published in November, identifies green hydrogen as having the potential to support decarbonisation across several sectors and, in particular, as a source for high-temperature heat in industry and flexible generation in electricity. A key target set out in the climate action plan is to carry out a work programme to identify a route to deliver one to three TWh of zero …

It is critical that we develop clean electricity because it can only be green hydrogen. As a State, we will not go down the route of hydrogen coming from natural gas which would only worsen our energy security issue. Some 90% of our energy is imported into this country at the present time. We have to change this for climate and other reasons. The green hydrogen strategy goes hand in glove with the renewable strategy. Renewable electricity will give us the power supply, through electrolysis, for green hydrogen. We a…

The Deputy asked a variety of questions. Obviously, safety has to come first. One of the issues with the networks is that green hydrogen has different characteristics such as much smaller molecules. Therefore, when it comes to the distribution gas network, even though ours is very modern, leakage becomes a more significant issue. Ports will be central to our hydrogen strategy because that will be the point where the offshore wind comes ashore. Most of our heavy industry and power generation plants, which will be th…

Yes. We are looking at a variety of schemes.

The role of the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, is to support Departments and other public bodies to improve the resilience and security of their IT systems to better protect services upon which people rely and their data. The NCSC has a number of vital functions, including co-ordinating the response to large-scale cybersecurity incidents; supporting public sector bodies and critical national infrastructure to safeguard their systems and mitigate cyber risks; and sharing advice and guidance on cyber threats w…

The first responsibility there is on the network providers. I have seen in the past how they work on a collective basis, including with the NCSC and other agencies, to make sure their networks are as secure as possible. They have the primary responsibility for the networks. However, the NCSC has overall responsibility. It is the centre of excellence and expertise in the State, to which the Garda, the Defence Forces, other corporations and, in particular, Departments and public agencies can have recourse to seek bes…

The first person I go to is the Secretary General in the Department. There is, however, a specific assistant secretary who I go to in terms of anything related to our network system. It is our responsibility in our Department to oversee the development, deployment and security of the networks. Both that assistant secretary and the director of the NCSC are directly responsible to me and to the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth. They are our first port of call in terms of seeking advice or making sure our networ…

The recently launched national home energy upgrade scheme introduces a new, highly customer-centric way to undertake home upgrades. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, registered one-stop shops will provide an end-to-end service for homeowners. This includes surveying, designing the upgrades, managing the grant process, helping with access to finance, engaging contractors and quality assurance. The scheme offers unprecedented grant levels, increased from approximately 30% to 50% of the cost of a typi…

To give details on the skills issue, in last year's budget, the Government provided €22 million for the green skills action programme with a particular focus on near-zero energy building and retrofitting, with a significant increase in course places. The Minister, Deputy Harris, actually came up to me after we launched the national retrofit scheme to say that not only did we have a massive response from householders who were interested but that the telephone was ringing off the hook in those centres. Some 5,000 app…