I thank the Chair for inviting me to address this Commencement matter. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 sets out the process for appointing members to the Climate Change Advisory Council and the qualifications and experience that members must have. The four appointments made in October followed these requirements scrupulously, and I am fully confident that the council has an excellent set of members who have the knowledge and experience needed to fulfil their crucial role. The Act …

I thank the Senator. As I have explained, the proper process was followed in making these appointments. This has ensured that an exceptional group of members has been appointed to the council to allow it to fulfil its crucial functions. That process is outlined in the climate legislation passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas earlier this year. I believe it was the most important legislation to have passed in many years. It was passed with consensus, including support from every party, apart from some Independents,…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. This issue was the subject of discussion last week during a Topical Issue debate and I welcome the opportunity to debate it again. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications published a notice of intention to grant two mineral prospecting licences in north Leitrim in local newspapers on 7 October 2021. Submissions on these applications were invited until 7 November, which was last Sunday, and no final decision has yet been taken on whether to grant the …

We should be aware that there are 432 active prospecting licences which cover about 21% of the country's land area. It means that 432 teams are actively prospecting, in many cases for gold, in different places all over the country. Some of those sites are within the Deputy's constituency in Sligo. It is this particular instance in Leitrim that has drawn considerable attention, not just from the Deputy but also from his constituency colleagues, Deputies Harkin and Martin Kenny. That may perhaps be because Leitrim, e…

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following: “notes: — the increase in energy costs and their impact on households and businesses; — that the increases in wholesale and retail energy prices in Ireland and across Europe are predominantly related to international wholesale gas prices; — that Ireland faces particular challenges in this regard as we are a price taker on international markets and that Irish electricity and gas prices have historically been higher than ot…

Yes. I am the Minister of State with responsibility for the Environment, Climate and Communications. I have delegated authority from the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to be here to answer questions. I have represented my-----

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, has statutory responsibility to monitor and take measures necessary to ensure the security of electricity supply in Ireland. The CRU has advised it has identified specific challenges to ensuring continued security of electricity supply. These challenges include lower than expected availability of some existing power stations, anticipated new power stations not being developed as planned, expected growth in demand for electricity, including due to the growth of data c…

A number of actions were recommended by the CRU, and each of those has been accepted by the Government and addressed. Providing emergency generation is just one of them, but more important than that was getting two other gas-fired power stations back online and ensuring everything recommended by the CRU was done. I met the CRU during the summer and its position was that while this was a serious situation, if we carried out the recommended actions, the risk would be greatly mitigated. The updated review statement in…

If Deputy O'Rourke has specific allegations or information given to him which he believes shows some kind of wrongdoing on the part of the ESB or EirGrid, I am happy to investigate that. However, if it just a vague feeling, suggestion or rumour that something untoward happened, there is not much I can do to advance that. Yesterday, Deputy Cowen presented and said he felt something that was not correct had been done and the energy supply crisis had somehow been orchestrated by the ESB. I have invited him to come bac…

Deputy Bacik will know better than anybody, because she would have studied the legislation going through, that there is a statutory process whereby the sectoral emissions ceilings are set. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021, which was passed in July 2021, requires the Government to adopt a series of economy-wide five-year carbon budgets, including sectoral targets for each relevant sector, on a rolling 15-year basis, starting with this year. The Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC,…

Deputy Bacik says we are late doing this, and we are. We are a decade late. We had ten years of twiddling our thumbs. We finally have an ambitious programme. It will be much harder to achieve because of a lost ten years. We are setting carbon budgets that go for 15 years: ten years and then five years in draft, so we have to get it right. We have been doing nothing for ten years, so it is essential we do not finalise or set something in stone for 2030 that will not work. Deputy Bacik says she is worried about us mi…

Huge progress has been made in the year this Government has been in place, compared with previous years. I really need all Opposition Deputies to go beyond encouraging the Government to set great strategies and targets and to support direct climate actions that are happening in their constituencies and areas. Therefore, if in your area you are opposing a local wind farm or a local cycle lane, then you are not helping. If you are organising people, stoking their fears and anxieties and saying, "This is something we …

No, definitely not.

The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 was signed into law in July of this year. It commits Ireland to reach a legally binding target of net zero emissions, not later than 2050, and a cut of 51% by 2030 compared with 2018 levels. Further to the enactment of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021, the Climate Change Advisory Council has recently advised proposed economy-wide carbon budgets for the periods 2021 to 2025 and 2026 to 2030, and a provisional budget …

The €9.5 billion was decided in summer 2020 as part of the programme for Government negotiations. The Fit for 55 target was not in place until after that point. These are valid questions about how we will get there, how we will pay for that, how we will bring people with us and the fact that climate action plans in the past did not amount to much. The difference now is political will. I have spent most of my life trying to achieve these things. I am now in a position to help. It is the same for many of my colleague…

I will have to come back to the Deputy about the commitment to establish a just transition commission. I do not know when that will be. It is not all about money. Having a lot of money to spend does not solve all your problems. Sometimes the staff cannot be found or there are not the skills within the economy, or else you have the money to spend but people do not want the money to be spent or people with vested interests in an area do not want that change. Not everything is about cash. Money is essential and things…

In addition to the challenges to the delivery of the national broadband plan, NBP, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, National Broadband Ireland, NBI, has faced a range of other challenges due to the sheer scale and complexity of rolling out fibre to the home in a rural environment. These include significant tree trimming to ensure cable can be placed on overhead poles, remediation of ducting that has been in place for many decades, the co-ordination of hundreds of contracting crews and addressing the many issues arisin…

All of the major fibre installers have had delays and have been affected by Covid. I have spoken with them directly about that. NBI is a brand new company which is not directly comparable with Eir. It is reliant on contractors with which it has shorter relationships. Regarding TII, CIÉ, and any difficulties, I have heard the Deputy's comments. I am willing to investigate those and see what can be done to improve that situation. Deputy Naughten knows that Covid caused real problems for installation in remote rural a…

I will re-establish the task force and I agree with the Deputy. In the meantime, I meet regularly with National Broadband Ireland, NBI. I attended its last board meeting and I spent a couple of hours with its chief executive on Tuesday in Limerick when installations were being done there. I see the fibre being installed at the data centre end and at the home end. I met with the chief executive of Eir earlier this week and I am offering to facilitate and make sure all stakeholders can work together and that there is…

I thank the Deputy. The programme for Government commits to expanding and incentivising microgeneration and to developing a solar strategy to ensure a greater share of our electricity is generated through solar PV. The pending introduction of a clean export guarantee tariff will represent the first phase of a comprehensive enabling framework for micro and small generators in Ireland, including schools, farms, sports clubs and community buildings. This will allow them to receive remuneration from their electricity s…