The Senator misunderstood me and I am certain it is my fault for not being clear enough. The first priority in demand management is to protect households, rather than to turn off their electricity. I am sorry if I was not clear when I said that. The Senator mentioned concerns about the CRU and what it is doing. Unless I am misunderstanding, the CRU is accountable to the committee, rather than to me. When it comes to the committee and the committee asks it questions, tells it what to do or holds it to account, that …

The legislation on the CRU makes it accountable to the Committee on Environment and Climate Action, rather than the Minister.

The Senator can come back to me afterwards.

This amendment asks for four reports providing data on energy demands and so on. This is great. I love to see informed debate. I would like to read this information myself. I look at those reports and think I would like to read them. It is a great idea. It does not fit within an EPA (amendment) Bill. It is fine to discuss it. In the previous debate, we said political accountability is very important, but reporting as proposed within specified timeframes, as set out in this proposed amendment, is not necessary. The …

In relation to the requested reports on demand-side reduction and energy use, I am happy to provide the Senators with any information I legally can that is relevant and useful. If any Senator contacts me I will be happy to work on that. We do not feel that it fits in with an EPA piece of legislation. On prioritisation of electricity supply, the State has a range of mitigations before cuts to household power apply. These include businesses, those who work voluntarily or have demand mandatorily curtailed, demand-side…

I thank the Deputies for bringing forward this important and interesting proposal on the protection of cash in the financial system. I listened to the contributions which were interesting. The Deputies were thinking about people being excluded from the financial system and people who do not have access to cash and where the only option is to make an electronic payment and, for one reason or another, people do not have access to that. Deputy O'Donoghue referred to people losing tips. I certainly see that a great dea…

He is going to.

Is he your favourite?

It is working fine.

We will know if it is broken.

The key objective of the inflation-supply chain delay co-operation framework introduced in May 2022 is to safeguard public projects that were already under construction or tendered in advance of the exceptional inflation in the price of construction materials, fuel and electricity since the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While there is evidence to suggest the rate of inflation has moderated significantly, prices remain elevated at present. The framework applies to the standard form of public works contra…

I thank the Deputy for acknowledging the framework was the right thing to do. We were in a situation where builders or construction firms were unlikely to be able to complete projects because they were no longer able to complete them for the amount of money that had been contracted, as the increase in inflation had not been foreseen. This would have left us in a position where we would have to retender them and the State would possibly have to pay even more. The feedback coming from the local authorities is that th…

It is a fair question. Individual Departments are allocated money at budget time. They are given the independence to spend that money with the oversight of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. It monitors their expenditure, audits them and then produces a report on each Department. The relevant committees of the Oireachtas can then bring the Accounting Officers before them and question them on the expenditure and what type of anomalies exist. The job of the Department of Public Expenditure, National D…

The latest version of the national development plan, NDP, capital investment tracker provides updates on over 270 projects and 140 programmes, including almost 100 projects costing in excess of €50 million. Driving productivity and increasing innovation in construction sector capacity is imperative to the Government to deliver on the projects outlined in the NDP. The construction sector group and its subgroup are working on seven actions to increase this innovation and productivity. These include the build digital …

I know that progress is being made but there are two sides to it. There is a commercial imperative to do this for reasons of efficiency and progress in technology. The Government also has to provide support through educational schemes, as we have laid out, and bring the different partners together. Ireland is famous for its construction. We have built a lot of major projects abroad over the years. There is a strong tradition in the sector. However, if we stick with that tradition of on-site construction and the use…

I agree with everything the Deputy has said. We can look at other countries and recognise that in some cases they are more advanced in their construction methods than we are. That is not only true in Europe but also in Asia. I have spoken to people in China responsible for social housing delivery and so on through off-site construction. Part of what is happening now is that because the State has clearly laid out its financial investment plans for the coming decade under Housing for All and the NDP, there is a clear…

I thank all Senators for their contributions and their ongoing engagement on the national development plan today. Some important issues were raised and I welcome the opportunity to clarify and elaborate on them. As stated earlier, my Department has been renamed to give an additional focus to the delivery of the NDP and to assist Departments in delivering on their much-needed priority projects. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and I are looking at all the policy levers and supporting structures at our disposal which co…

I believe that the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications is representing his country at a meeting of European energy ministers. The war in Ukraine has resulted in an unprecedented rise in energy prices and is a major challenge for families and businesses throughout Ireland and across Europe. This very significant increase in costs for consumers has caused real hardship for many people. This is most pronounced over the winter months, when energy use is at its highest. That is why the Government ha…

My Department will bring before the Government proposals for a windfall tax to be approved by the Cabinet in the coming weeks. Primary legislation will be required to bring that through. The measure will impose taxes on unfair profits which were generated not just by people who own oil or gas reserves but anybody generating electricity from sources other than gas who unfairly profited from the very significant increase in the price of electricity. That could be wind farms or people generating electricity from solar…

I am as eager as the Deputy to see these reductions passed on and that is why we are legislating for unfair profits. I have met the ESB and Bord Gáis and my Department continues to meet them. I am sure the Minister does as well, although I have not spoken to him on it. We will be legislating for this in the coming weeks. The amount of money that is expected to be raised is between €280 million and €600 million, a significant amount of money, and all of that money is legally ring-fenced for electricity consumers. Th…