I move: That the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action pursuant to Standing Orders 95(3)(a) and 181(1).

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the invitation to provide a statement on the Climate Action Plan 2023. I also thank all Deputies for their constructive and insightful contributions today, which are always welcome. In closing, I wish to restate the significance of the climate action plan, which sets out the steps we must take to achieve our climate objective and to evolve into a more resilient, healthy and energy-secure society. The climate action plan provides the sectoral emissions ceilings, which were approved in…

This is the third year in a row in which I am presenting the Bill and I am pleased to do so in Seanad Éireann today. The Bill is a key component of the annual budgetary process that must be concluded by both Houses of the Oireachtas before the end of the year. While it is a technical item of legislation, it is one of fundamental importance. It serves two key purposes. First, it is necessary to provide a lawful basis for the expenditure incurred this year. It is based on the total Estimates voted on by the Dáil. Thi…

I thank Senator Buttimer for his kind words on my precarious position. I believe what will happen if a new Taoiseach is appointed, and presumably he or she will be, is that I will cease to be a Minister of State at that point. I will start by addressing the points made by Senator Kyne. He mentioned the public spending code. There has to be a balance between the number of stages that it takes to get project approval and the amount of time that is required. There are three decision gates. Initially, to carry out a bi…

There are 81,507 premises located in County Cork that will be passed by National Broadband Ireland, NBI, with high-speed gigabit fibre broadband as part of the State intervention under the national broadband plan, NBP. NBI has advised that 15,711 premises in Cork are passed by the NBP high-speed fibre broadband network and are available for immediate connection. Some 11,196 premises were passed in Cork in 2022 to date and 4,091 premises in Cork have been connected to date with 2,989 of those connected in 2022. Stra…

The first question is on how many schools have not been connected. I do not have this data to hand but the final schools to be connected across the entire country are to be completed by June 2023. The next question was on the number of homes that Eir will not connect, because they are in the intervention area, or is "not allowed to" connect as the Deputy said. Eir can connect a home anywhere in Ireland if it wants to. The provider is not excluded from providing broadband in rural areas and it does so in many cases,…

There is a financial disincentive to connect within a rural area for a commercial operator. It is because it has to compete with a State-subsidised provider. National Broadband Ireland has to provide 25 years of fibre broadband to people for the same price in a rural area as it would cost them in an urban area and we have State-aid approval from the EU to do that because of the market failure in those areas. It can be difficult for commercial suppliers to compete in such areas because they are competing against a p…

The architecture of the network design for the national broadband plan is specifically based on the design of the National Broadband Ireland network coming from the Open Eir exchanges or the metropolitan area networks managed by Eir. It is based on an engineering design that allows NBI to get to every premises as quickly and as efficiently as possible working within the confines of how fibre networks are built. The design uses existing infrastructure to a very significant degree. NBI have advised that it has run a …

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "notes that: — the Government is keenly aware of the growing pressures that families and businesses are under, and Budget 2023 announced a package of support measures amounting to €2.5 billion, including a lump-sum payment for recipients of the Fuel Allowance and a broadening of the threshold for that allowance, and this follows a previous €2.4 billion package of policies and measures in place to support people since Octo…

I am glad to hear them. It is certainly better than what we heard yesterday, which I felt was an entirely negative attack on one man over housing policy. Today at least we have some proposals to discuss. Deputy Boyd Barrett stated that nationalisation is an absolute must. That is the core of what this motion is about. We have a lot of involvement from the public sector in the energy market in Ireland. Provision of electricity at certain stages is a natural monopoly. That is why we have EirGrid, which is owned by th…

We have a lot of electricity generation, distribution, transmission and the future of renewable generation being built by State-owned entities. At the same time there are also some private entities involved. Bord na Móna is going to try to build a wind farm off the coast of Dún Laoghaire and Wicklow. I hope it succeeds. I will be working through the process and seeing what is the best way it can be done. I certainly will not be opposing it. The Deputy will not find me at residents' association meetings around the c…

The Government is aware of the growing pressures on families and businesses. The most immediate factor affecting electricity prices in Ireland has of course been the invasion of Ukraine. In response to rising electricity and gas prices in the EU, the European Commission has put in place a number of measures available to member states to mitigate the impact of the energy price rises on households and businesses. The Council of energy ministers, at their meeting on 30 September, agreed the Council regulation on an em…

I thank the Deputies. I welcome the opportunity to once again set out the factual position on these matters. I can advise that a number of protected disclosures, mostly anonymous, have been made on IFI to the Department and to IFI itself. These disclosures are being examined in line with the protected disclosure policy of the Department and the equivalent policy of IFI, as appropriate. It is important to note that the veracity of the disclosures has not been established at this stage and this will remain the positi…

I acknowledge the strength of feeling from all three Deputies, that they are from different constituencies and that they mean what they say. I should be clear that the process is by no means over. There are a number of Garda investigations ongoing and the latest protected disclosures on IFI, which were mostly anonymously made, are still being examined. The Department has to follow due process; there is a set of laws that have to be complied with and all the allegations have to be fully examined. The Department has …

I thank Senator Higgins for her considered amendment. I know she is trying to do the right thing, that her heart is in the right place, and that she put a lot of work into this. I am not opposing this amendment. I thank the Senator.

I thank the Senators. I agree that the earlier the criteria are introduced, the more likely they are to happen and the more cost-effective they will be. That applies to ecodesign as well. We need to think about it right at the start. It is not the icing on the cake at the end; something that we add on that then does not fit because it has been designed for something else. That applies to a range of areas, in particular in sustainability. It is not an add-on, it must be part of the early design process and we must t…

I move: That, pursuant to Standing Order 233, Standing Order 187 is modified to provide that it be an instruction to the Committee to which the Communications Regulation Bill 2022 may be recommitted in respect of certain amendments that: the Committee has the power to make amendments to the Bill which are outside the existing subject matter of the Bill, in relation to: i. the Digital Hub Development Agency Act 2003 to amend section 15(1) to reduce the membership of the Agency from fourteen to eight; and ii. the Dig…

I thank the Cathaoirleach and welcome our distinguished guests. I thank Senator O'Loughlin for raising this matter, to which I will reply on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan. I will explain what the OPW does on behalf of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in this area. Section 28 of the State Property Act 1954 provides that property held by a dissolved company at the time of its dissolution becomes property of the State in the name of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. It w…

The Senator mentioned she had spoken to the Department of Finance. I clarified that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has responsibility and that the OPW is the section of that Department which deals with this. Second, a company can be restored for up to 20 years after dissolution. That is the reason the State is reluctant to carry out any development or works on bits of land it may own during that period. With respect to taking in charge, the note I have tells me that ownership by the State does not …

The Minister for Transport has the responsibility for overall policy and Exchequer funding in relation to the national roads programme. Once funding arrangements have been put in place with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2015 and in line with the national development plan, the operation and management of individual national roads is a matter for TII in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. Matters relating to day-to-day operations regarding national roads, including …