I propose to take Questions Nos. 20 to 39, inclusive, together.

The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, advises me on strategic policy issues relating to sustainable, economic, social and environmental development in Ireland. The last two significant NESC reports published and submitted to Government were council report No.170, Connecting People to the Energy Transition, and NESC report No.171, Building a Virtuous Demographic Cycle.

The NESC report No. 170 was submitted to the Government last August. It examines how households can share in the economic, environmental and well-being benefits of the energy transition, while protecting the most vulnerable from negative impacts. In the report, NESC outlines five areas of action: energy affordability; energy poverty; monitoring and targeting; scaling energy efficiency and clean heat; helping households reap electricity benefits; place-based energy resilience and local production; and strengthening energy connections. The council concludes that households and communities can potentially play a very significant and immediate role in making energy savings, generating renewable energy and building energy resilience if they are enabled to do so.

The Government is committed to building Ireland's energy resilience and ending energy poverty. We are working at speed to roll out more renewable energy infrastructure, onshore and offshore wind and solar panels. This is already helping to bring down the cost of electricity and is a long term solution to high energy bills.

We are making it easier for people to improve their energy efficiency and produce their own energy, with a range of grants to install solar PV panels on homes, businesses and farms, with budget 2026 providing a record capital allocation of €558 million for SEAI residential and community energy upgrade schemes. The Government has already acted on that commitment through measures introduced in budget 2026, including the extension of the 9% VAT rate currently applied to electricity and gas, to the end of 2030 and an increase in the fuel allowance payment by €5 to €38 per week, equating to a 15% increase from January 2026. This will provide an additional €140 to over 460,000 recipients during the annual fuel allowance season. The payment has also been expanded to include those in receipt of the working family payment.

In addition, the Government has extended the €400 income tax disregard for households involved in microgeneration for a further three years to the end of 2028. It is important to note that the Department of Social Protection can also provide support through the additional needs payment to help households meet expenses, including those who face difficulties with fuel bills. The Government is working at speed to roll out more renewable energy infrastructure, onshore and offshore wind and solar panels. This is already helping to bring down the cost of electricity and is the long term solution to high energy bills. The Government is also making it easier for people to improve their energy efficiency and produce their own energy with a range of grants to install solar PV panels on homes, businesses and farms.

In 2026, a record capital allocation of €640 million, including €550 million from carbon tax receipts, will support the SEAI's residential and community energy upgrade schemes, including the solar PV scheme. This means that more funding than ever will be available to make homes warmer, healthier, more comfortable and less expensive to heat. Analysis carried out by DCEE and the SEAI indicates that a household can save between €750 and €1,120 per year by installing a deep package of measures.

Among other things, the report deals with the issue of energy poverty. It might be of interest to the Taoiseach to know that disability groups, pensioner groups, trade unions and many others, as part of the recently established Affordable Ireland Campaign, will hold a major protest on 28 February. At the centre of that is a demand that this Government brings in an emergency winter payment, even at this late stage, and beyond that, cost-of-disability payments.

Energy poverty is at the centre of it and how vulnerable people, older people and people with disabilities get particularly hard hit and have been particularly hard hit during the winter months. The removal of the energy credits and the lack of action by the Government on the profiteering of energy companies is resulting in energy poverty. What will the Taoiseach say to people suffering from energy poverty?

The energy transition is not happening, is it? A total of 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. It is not because ordinary people are not making efforts to make changes in their lives, put on solar panels and retrofit their houses and so on. The central reason is that data centre usage of electricity has ballooned by more than 400% in the past ten years and it is on a trajectory to rise even faster. Even though renewable capacity is being added to the grid, all of that is being swallowed up by big tech.

That is not just a problem for our climate. It is causing ordinary people's bills to go higher and higher. It is adding to the cost-of-living crisis. This year, people's electricity bills will 10% higher than they were last year. Almost 300,000 people are in arrears on their electricity bills. All of that is to satisfy the big tech corporations. It is time to stop and it is time listen to the likes of the Friends of the Earth and provide an energy guarantee scheme and it is time for people to be on the streets on 28 February with the Affordable Ireland Campaign.

A serious structural barrier has emerged in the transition to electric vehicles, EVs, that Government policy is yet to confront. Large numbers of people, particularly those in apartments, terraced houses and rented accommodation, have no driveway and, under current circumstances, they are precluded from installing a home charger. On-street charging schemes remain extremely limited and subject to inconsistent rules across local authorities. In many parts of the country, residents are simply told that no programme exists and installations are not permitted. That lack of flexibility is no longer sustainable if we are serious about EV uptake.

Public charging is not a viable substitute for EV owners. It is now significantly more expensive than home charging and would leave many households paying a permanent premium just to play their part in the transition. That creates a grossly unequal shift to EVs, based on housing circumstances. The recent report from the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, stresses the need for an inclusive transition. When will the Government publish a clear national plan for residential EV charging for households without driveways?

I would like to focus on two key themes in the NESC report: energy resilience and energy sharing. In light of the particularly adverse weather, it is important that for events we have experienced and will increasingly experience, we guarantee generators to communities so communities can respond, which is clearly identified in the report.

On energy sharing, within the electricity markets directive, there is a clear emphasis on trying to support communities in self-generating and sharing their own electricity and for individuals and organisations who microgenerate electricity to be able to share that. This report highlights that we have not gone far enough in Ireland in this regard and I would like to know what measures the Government will take to address that.

We are losing millions every single week due to dispatch down and curtailment. At the energy committee, we are constantly pushing to future-proof our grid, long duration energy storage, LDES, and private wire legislation as something to stop this. Recently, I visited at a solar farm, which has to turn off at 12 noon due to curtailment. This needs to be brought in and fast-tracked.

Speaking of climate and energy, we have seen flooding across the country. Last week, I raised the north city arterial main, NCAM, project. After I raised the project with the Taoiseach, somehow I got a meeting with Uisce Éireann. In that meeting, I asked for meaningful consultation with residents with additional needs, a clear timeline for each phase of the works, traffic management that reflects the commuting patterns in north Dublin and access protection for residents, schools and businesses. This would not happen on the other side of the River Liffey.

The lack of consultation with people with disabilities is a fundamental failure. A constituent of mine, Mark, has additional needs and is effectively trapped because of the cancellation of the H3 service. I was just texting his mother there. This cannot happen. People in north Dublin understand these works are needed but there were no leaflet drops in areas where people will be affected. I asked Uisce Éireann for a key number of leaflets that were dropped for north Dublin residents. It is still to come back to me on what houses were dropped. These works affect the entirety of north Dublin and they need to be properly brought out to the residents so we know what is happening.

Despite accounting for just 2% of the national landmass, County Offaly is on course to provide approximately 30% of the energy needed to power the country, including 1 GW each from wind and solar. At the moment, we supply 11% of the country's power. Last month, Offaly was the largest wind energy provider in the country. That is a very significant national contribution. Yet, Offaly remains 10% below the national average for disposable income and it is important that the communities driving this transition are supported to share in the prosperity it can bring. At a time when international investors and multinational employers are seeking locations that can provide carbon neutral and cost-effective energy, Offaly is uniquely positioned to attract major enterprise and long-term employment. Will the Taoiseach confirm the Government will match Offaly's national contribution with full support for local infrastructure and investment needed to ensure the county secures the economic benefits of helping to power Ireland's future?

The NESC report states that Ireland is facing an ageing population over the next number of decades, with declining birth rates and a growing older population. One of the recommendations of the report is that research be carried out into the motives that affect demography, such as the decision to have a baby or to emigrate. We do not a report to tell us that. Every day, I see the vast numbers of young people in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and in Canada, the US, the UK and everywhere in between who have chosen to emigrate to make a life for themselves there rather than settling at home and having a family. This issue is particularly affecting rural Ireland because we cannot build rural, one-off homes to the extent we need.

We need to relax rural planning, allow us to build in rural areas and scrap the development contribution that is nothing more than a tax for the privilege of building on our own land. If we address those issues, we can build more houses in rural Ireland and get young people back home and back in to rural Ireland, raising our families for our schools, our clubs and so much more.

In fairness this was brought up earlier as regards energy poverty. There is an acceptance by Government that there is a need for a payment relating to the cost of disability. It was provided for last year. A review process is ongoing.

It is unfortunate that it is necessary for the Affordable Ireland Campaign coalition to come together and for that protest to happen on 28 February but we need action now. It is not much good for people who cannot afford to pay for heating at this point in time. They cannot afford to get a wheelchair charged and have to make decisions like that.

We really need a short-term measure before we get the other one, and that is before we deal with the CRU and dealing with energy issues.

Deputy Boyd Barrett was first into the fray in terms of the winter payment and so forth. The Government took a lot of measures on energy in the budget, for example, reducing the VAT rate to 9% and keeping it there until 2030, including the working family payment in the fuel allowance and increasing the fuel allowance by €5 so that there are a very substantial number of people now benefiting. There are approximately 450,000 recipients of the fuel allowance now.

The Deputy seems to support the energy credit as well. He is supporting millionaires getting the energy credit.

No. Get them on tax.

The left wing in this country never ceases to amaze me.

Get them on tax.

We do. We have the most progressive tax system. We have, by any yardstick-----

-----which is quite substantial and effective.

The bottom line anyway is that we are targeting the resources at those who need it most. I accept there is pressure on energy. Of that, there is not doubt, but to keep doing €2 billion to €3 billion in one-off payments is not sustainable. One third of our revenue is corporate tax. That may not last forever. We need to embed measures into the permanent budget, which is what we did beginning in the budget. There is huge investment in infrastructure and investment in the retrofitting programme - the biggest budget ever. We are supporting fuel poverty and investing in other areas as well to try to reduce the pressure on people, and in terms of other income disregards for microgeneration, etc.

On Deputy Paul Murphy's questions, again, there were great sound bites that the Government is sort of swallowed up by big tech and we are doing this for big tech. Whether he likes it or not, the digital economy will require data centres into the future. I do not know how we are going to do it otherwise. Equally, when the Deputy casually talks about big tech, they employ. That is not why we are doing, by the way. Our fundamental agenda is always to support workers and to support good quality jobs in this country. The Deputy dismisses it all of the time. He really could not care less about how many thousands of people are working in technology companies in this country.

In my own city of Cork, Apple employs 6,000 people. Is the Deputy dismissing them as big tech?

No.

Yes, the Deputy is.

The Taoiseach knows I am not.

I do not know it.

The Taoiseach knows I am not.

The Deputy deliberately disingenuously goes on that we are doing it for big tech.

"Disingenuous".

Six thousand are employed in one company alone in the city of Cork. Thousands are employed all over the country in technology companies.

How many in data centres?

I am not talking about them. Sorry, a lot of those companies-----

I was talking to the Taoiseach about data.

The Deputy cannot disassociate or segregate all of that.

That is the whole point of data. Data centres can be anywhere.

The Deputy cannot do that. Then AI is next on the agenda.

Exactly.

We cannot miss out. We have to manage it. We have to harness it. We have to develop it and we are. We are investing up to €18 billion in PR6 to increase grid capacity. We are investing in interconnectors as well and seeking further grid connections, with the Continent as well as with the United Kingdom, to try to support what we are doing.

Renewables are making a very sizeable contribution.

It is 20%.

Some days it can be 50% of electricity generation in this country. The Deputy knows that too but that is a figure that he will never reference.

Deputy Quaide raised the transition to EVs. He has left the House. Members keep going around in circles because on another day, they support proposals where people do not even have cars outside houses at this stage. This is a challenge. There is no easy answer. In some new developments that I have seen in cities, the presumption is that people will not need a car at all. No car parking is provided for in the planning. It is a challenge we need to revisit in terms of people's lives and decisions that people make.

In response to Deputy Malcolm Byrne, we are providing generators to communities, and to community hubs in particular. The procurement started with the Departments of social and community affairs.

On the European system and the grid system-----

Microgeneration.

Yes. We are also progressing that. The Deputy also asked about communities generating and sharing themselves. That is something we have to progress better.

Deputy Heneghan raised the same. There are issues there. The private wires legislation is moving fast. I cannot get into leaflet dropping by a State agency, but it should do it properly and it should look after the public and make sure they are well sorted.

Public representatives should know it is going in.

Deputy McCormack said Offaly is leading the way. It is a powerful set of statistics. Everybody in the House is probably not aware of the degree to which Offaly is becoming a powerhouse. Bord na Móna is a big factor here. We will have further developments on that front, and investments.

It is time that foreign direct investment and IDA Ireland looked at what Offaly has to offer. Contrary to what Deputy Paul Murphy is saying, there is real potential for energy parks and an alternative new economy with Bord na Móna as a catalyst and, as a significant State agency, to leverage its land assets and what it has to try to generate a new economy and new jobs for Offaly more generally. This is something that is potentially very positive and we should keep at it.

Deputy O'Meara raised the rural house guidelines. I have been pressing the Minister in that regard. I said earlier that unit in that Department has a lot on, but the rural house guidelines are very important. I will look at the development levies issue. The more important thing is to get the guidelines to enable people to build on their land. There is a lot better technology nowadays in terms of how to deal with wastewater, etc.

Deputy Ó Murchú also raised the cost of disability. The Minister, Deputy Calleary, is working on that and he will have proposals for the next budget in that respect. A lot of detailed work has to happen on this; it is not simple.

I accept that, but there is need for an emergency measure because people are under severe pressure.