The Deputy can table that as another question and I will be very happy to answer that.

It justifies a deeper answer than what I can give. There is clearly a commitment in the Department to help and foster community energy and switch from the competitive auction process towards a non-competitive, supported community energy support scheme. I invite the Deputy to promote any energy scheme in her area and to contact the Department for details.

Annual Exchequer funding provided by my Department is allocated to various programmes and subheads in the Revised Estimates and approved by Dáil Éireann. For practical reasons, as set out in public financial procedures, there are two arrangements to vary the allocations between subheads. These are the passing of a technical Supplementary Estimate by Dáil Éireann or a process called virement, which is usually used for lower value transfers and requires the prior approval of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP …

I consider that a very serious, misleading and ludicrous accusation. To say that money is being siphoned from one project to a pet project is ridiculous. Some 99.85% of the budget was spent according to how it was primarily allocated. Some 0.15% of the budget was moved between different subheads. This is a small movement of money which happens when, for administrative reasons, money cannot be spent for whatever reason on any particular project. In order to transfer money from one budget to another, the Minister for…

I thank the Deputy. He referred to a sum of €150 million being transferred. The total amount of money transferred over three years was just over €5 million. I am not sure where the figure of €150 million is coming from. I wonder if he is looking at a different table. We are talking about-----

We are talking about 0.15% of the budget. We are not talking about €150 million. The total amount of money over three years is €5.5 million. It is being transferred for administrative reasons where it was not possible to complete all of the expenditure on one subhead of a project and, therefore, was moved to another subhead. I have seen the Deputy use this technique with other Departments. He has found a trick. He says, "Oh, you moved money from these guys and gave it to these guys" and he sees some malice there. I…

The month of May 2023 saw the highest number of solar PV applications since the launch of the scheme, with 2,862 new applications accepted. This was a 55% increase on the previous month and a 104% increase on May 2022. There has been sustained high demand on the scheme since then, with August 2023 having a 54% increase over August 2022. This follows the amendment to the Finance Bill 2023 to apply a 0% VAT rate for the "supply and installation of solar panels on domestic premises" effective from 15 May 2023. The dom…

One good thing about solar PV is that it is very quick to deploy. It only takes a couple of days to install it and it does not take a lot of experience or training to put up the panels. Obviously, you need a registered electrical contractor to connect it to your system but it is a rapidly deployable technology, which is why 30,000 homes have already received it. It is not just the 0% VAT rate that causes people to get it. It is also because of the planning permission exemption, the grant you can get and the fact yo…

I believe there is already a solar scheme for the medically vulnerable. I do not have the details of the progress of that but it is already being deployed. There will be more solar schemes in the budget and the Deputy is welcome to make any suggestions. The budget has not yet been announced. The schemes will continue to be supported. The public sector is leading by example. I have been working closely with the HSE and expect that it will have solar panels on every one of its buildings. It is the largest sector in t…

National air quality monitoring stations are operated, maintained and monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, under the ambient air quality monitoring programme. My Department has provided funding for a significant upgrade to the network in recent years and the number of monitoring stations has increased from 29 in 2017 to 114 today. The expansion will be complete when the remaining stations are connected in 2023, which will bring the final number of stations to 116. All stations collect air quality …

We need to acknowledge that Ireland has a higher incidence of respiratory illness than other countries in Europe. The European Environment Agency has reported we have 1,300 premature deaths a year from breathing illnesses and we all know of people with COPD and relatives of ours who have had traumatic deaths as a result of air quality. It is hidden. We dealt with the visible air quality problems of smog and indoor smoke in pubs, but now we are dealing with PM 2.5, which is an invisible form of pollutant and it is h…

I refer the Deputy to the report of the urban transport related air pollution working group to see what its analysis of transport-related emissions are. There is a particular problem around schools to do with idling and the fact there are young children with growing brains hanging around outside schools while a lot of vehicles pollute those areas. I will be meeting with the EPA shortly and will raise the Deputy's concerns around air quality from traffic, its monitoring in urban areas, and what can be done about it.

My Department is currently finalising the energy security package which will address the energy security challenges facing Ireland. This package is focused on the period to 2030, but in the broader context of transitioning Ireland to net-zero emissions by 2050. The Government’s policy objectives are to ensure energy is affordable, sustainable and secure, as well as in line with Ireland’s climate targets and statutory carbon budgets. Underpinned by these objectives, the energy security of supply review considered th…

The Minister, Deputy Ryan, is not here because he is representing Ireland in Paris by chairing a meeting of the international energy agency on critical raw materials. This is a complex piece of work. It is a long-term strategy on how to protect Ireland's security of supply, not just of gas but also of electricity and oil. Therefore, a lot of work is required to get it right. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, said in June that he expected the review would be published by the following month. That was his expectation at the…

All the correct procedures were followed. As the Deputy is aware, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is a prescribed body for making submissions on planning applications and it is natural on such a large planning application that the Department made a submission. The decision for An Bord Pleanála was straightforward and it followed the correct rules. I do not think there is any room for legal challenge and I do not expect there to be a challenge to what happened. If there is, I expect tha…

Loss and damage is a key priority of Ireland's climate diplomacy. For the last year, Ireland has been working on the transitional committee for loss and damage to develop strong recommendations on the new funding arrangements. Ireland is committed to delivering a strong outcome on loss and damage at COP28, including the operationalisation of new funding arrangements for assisting vulnerable developing countries to respond to the impacts of climate change. The scale of finance needs for loss and damage is huge and w…

Ireland has been involved in previous loss and damage operations and will do the same again this time. We are considered to be a high-ambition country and one that puts social justice at the core of what it pushes for. There will be grants. We will be pushing for that angle. We will also try to ensure that the countries that need the money get it. We have to recognise that in order to achieve decarbonisation, we need a fundamental transformation of our economies. This will require participation not only from govern…

It is a question of the extent to which we target the funding. Should we target the funding towards those who need it most or should we make it more universal, spreading it more thinly among a larger number of countries? Clearly, somebody has to draw a line at some point and decide which countries are developing countries and which are countries that require finance. Ireland's financing for loss and damage has historically been primarily grant based. It has been channelled through numerous bilateral and civil socie…

Under the Climate Action Plan 2023, the Government has committed to a new demand-side strategy for electricity and gas being put in place. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, commenced work in this area by publishing a call for evidence and consultation paper in June 2023. The closing date has now passed. The CRU is currently analysing all responses received. In addition to formal consultation, officials in my Department regularly engage with relevant stakeholders, particularly in the context of the en…

We had a data centre policy in 2018 which did not refer to security of supply, to the climate challenge or to emissions. The new data centre policy, as issued in 2022, does refer to such matters. It is important that any new data centres that are built are contributing to security of supply and helping us to meet our climate targets. That is not impossible to do. In order to build a data centre, one needs planning permission and a grid connection, so one has two hurdles to meet. Getting planning permission for a da…