This morning, we will engage with the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment to examine the appropriation accounts for 2024 – Vote 29; the Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2024 – chapters 12, 13 and 23; the Market Cap Fund; and the Climate Action Fund.

On behalf of the committee, I welcome officials from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment: Ms Oonagh Buckley, Secretary General; Mr. Barry Quinlan, assistant secretary general; Mr. Brian Carroll, assistant secretary general; Mr. Paul Bolger, assistant secretary general; and Mr. Jim Whelan, principal officer. From the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, I welcome Mr. Fergal Mulligan, chairperson; Mr. John Melvin, director of security of supply and wholesale; and Mr. Fergus O'Toole, active customer and smart metering manager. We are also joined by officials who are attending in a representative capacity: Mr. Tom McCormack, financial and commercial leave in the digital connectivity office at the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, and Mr. Eoin Dormer, principal officer at the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. We are also joined by officials from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, including the Comptroller and Auditor General himself, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee, and Mr. Mark Brady, deputy director of audit. They are all very welcome here this morning.

Before we begin, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege, and the practice of the Houses as regards reference witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses who are physically present or give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. This means that they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure it is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Witnesses are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity, by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

I now call on the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, to make his opening statement.

The appropriation account for Vote 29, Environment, Climate and Communications, records total expenditure of €1.734 billion in 2024. The expenditure is accounted for under four programmes.

The programme for climate action and environment leadership involved expenditure of just under €128 million, including grant support for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Expenditure under the energy transformation programme amounted to just over €1 billion, mainly comprising €520 million spent on the temporary electricity credit scheme, €457 million on Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, energy schemes and research, and a grant of €29 million in respect of the SEAI's administration costs.

One hundred million euro was spent on the circular economy development programme, which encompasses waste management, the Geological Survey of Ireland, grant support for Inland Fisheries Ireland and for the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, which had its first year of operation in 2024.

Expenditure on the connectivity and communications programme in 2024 was €467 million. Four hundred and ten million euro of this related to expenditure on the national broadband plan. The communications programme transferred out of Vote 29, reflecting changes in departmental responsibilities following Government formation in 2025.

I certified the 2024 appropriation account on 18 September 2025 and issued a clear audit opinion. The audit report draws attention to two matters disclosed in the account. Note 6.5 discloses the payment to the European Commission in 2024 of a fine of €4.5 million arising from the late transposition into Irish law of the 2018 European electronic communications code directive. The legislation required to give effect to the transposition was only completed in November 2023, almost three years after the transposition deadline, and after the Commission had commenced infringement proceedings against Ireland in the European Court of Justice.

The Accounting Officer has also disclosed in the statement on internal financial control that the Department was not compliant with national procurement rules in respect of contracts to the value of €527,000 that operated in 2024.

The statutory Climate Action Fund was established with effect from 1 August 2020 to receive and ring-fence funds to support schemes and projects that contribute to the achievement of Ireland's climate and energy targets, including in regions and sectors impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy. The fund's income in 2024 comprised €100 million transferred from the National Oil Reserves Agency levy and €549,000 in receipts to offset the greenhouse gas emissions associated with air travel undertaken by staff of Government Departments and offices.

The expenditure from the Climate Action Fund in 2024 was €99.4 million, up significantly from the €23 million spent in 2023. This comprised €57.7 million transferred for the SEAI's public sector efficiency programme, €16.9 million for a Bord na Móna bog rehabilitation scheme, just under €10 million for a schools' photovoltaic panel programme and around €15 million on other climate-related schemes. A slow roll-out of climate action schemes has resulted in accumulated reserves totalling €275 million in the fund as at the end of 2024.

The establishment of the Market Cap Fund was one of a number of measures introduced in response to rapidly rising energy prices following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The legislation setting up the fund allowed for a temporary levy on electricity suppliers in respect of revenues in excess of capped amounts from the sale of electricity in the period beginning on 1 December 2022 and ending on 30 June 2023. The application of the resources of the fund is statutorily at the discretion of the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment.

Electricity suppliers were required to make returns to the CRU with their own assessments of the payment due. EirGrid is responsible for maintaining the fund, keeping proper accounts and submitting them to me for audit. The legislation setting up the fund did not create a formal accountability role for the financial statements, so the Secretary General of the Department assumed that responsibility.

In summary, returns were made by 236 electricity suppliers, and receipts for the period of account 2023–24 totalled €188.9 million. There was no expenditure from the fund in the period of account, and the balance in the fund stood at €190 million at the end of September 2024. By the time I reported in September 2025, just €3.9 million had been issued from the fund in respect of an SEAI scheme that grants aid towards installing photovoltaic systems for non-domestic entities.

Chapter 12 of my Report on the Accounts of the Public Services for 2024 reviews the progress made towards achieving climate neutrality targets in Ireland. Current projections indicate that even with the implementation of planned additional measures, greenhouse gas emissions are expected to exceed national and EU targets set for 2030. It is therefore likely that the Exchequer will face significant financial liabilities and compliance-related costs.

The value of these costs is highly uncertain, with estimates ranging from €3 billion to €26 billion. Responsibility for delivering the national climate objective spans several Departments of Government, and it remains unclear which Votes will ultimately bear the cost of the expected failure to achieve the agreed targets.

The final report before the committee this morning explains the reasons for the cancellation of carbon credits acquired in anticipation of a failure to meet climate targets up to 2020, arising from the Kyoto Agreement. The carbon fund was established in 2007 to record carbon credit transactions. The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment is responsible for decisions to purchase carbon units as and when required. The NTMA manages the fund and is the designated purchasing agent on behalf of the State. Through the fund, the State spent a net €118 million in acquiring almost 12 million credits. As a result of restrictions introduced under a 2009 EU effort-sharing decision, Ireland was unable to use 702,000 of those credits. The carbon fund has effectively been dormant since 2022, with no assets other than the 702,000 unusable carbon credits, carried at nil value. As a result, the cost of acquiring the credits has effectively been written off. Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh.

Thanks for that, Mr. McCarthy. I ask the Secretary General to deliver the opening statement on behalf of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment. As set out in the letter of invitation, she has five minutes to make her opening statement.

I thank the Chairman and thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. I am accompanied by assistant secretaries Barry Quinlan, Brian Carroll, Paul Bolger and Lisa Keyes and by the Department's head of finance, Jim Whelan. I look forward to engaging with the committee on the Department's 2024 appropriation account and the chapters highlighted by the committee in its invitation. At the outset, I would like to draw the committee's attention to the fact that the 2024 appropriation account contains details of functions that, following the transfer of functions on the formation of the last Government, no longer rest with the Department, namely, telecommunications and cybersecurity. Accordingly, while I can speak to expenditure in 2024, I am not in a position to discuss more recent matters in this area. I am glad that my former colleague, Tom McCormack, has joined us. He may be able to answer to more recent queries on communications.

During 2024 the total gross expenditure under the Vote amounted to €1.734 billion. This was €37 million or 2% below the revised gross budgetary allocation, including capital carryover, of €2.670 billion. In October 2024, the Department received a Supplementary Estimate of an additional €553 million comprising €520 million for the fourth electricity credit €30 million to meet the Minister's contractual obligations under the national broadband plan and €3 million to support the HSE pilot energy and decarbonisation pathfinder project. The Supplementary Estimate also provided for the transfer of €440,000 from subhead A8, just transition fund - Ireland and EU, to a newly created subhead A11, just transition fund, to repay to the European Commission pre-financing received as part of the EU just transition fund.

The spend of €1.039 billion under the Department's energy transformation programme reflected the continued focus on energy affordability as a result of rising international energy prices and the knock-on effect for domestic customers. As part of the Government's response to the resulting cost-of-living crisis, €520 million was provided for the electricity costs emergency benefit scheme. Over €421 million in capital funding was spent on residential and community retrofit programmes in 2024, up 30% on 2023. This supported 53,984 home energy upgrades, up 13% on 2023. Of these, 7,743 homes were delivered under the fully funded warmer homes scheme for households at risk of energy poverty, an increase of 31% on 2023. Including approved housing body-owned properties, 54% of the total expenditure was on upgrades in households at risk of energy poverty. Overall, 21,817 homes achieved a post-works building energy rating, BER, of B2 or better in 2024, representing a 24% increase year on year.

Looking across Government expenditure, when expenditure on local authority upgrades is included, 64% of total Government expenditure on residential and community retrofitting was in homes at risk of energy poverty. In addition, over €60 million was spent on retrofitting public sector buildings in 2024, the majority funded through the climate action fund. The home energy upgrade loan scheme was launched in April 2024 to provide lower cost loans to help homeowners invest in energy efficiency, making their homes warmer, healthier and cheaper to run. A total of €99.6 million was provided from the energy efficiency national fund for the scheme.

In 2024, the Department provided €128 million for climate action and environment leadership programmes, including almost €58 million to the Environmental Protection Agency under subhead A3, Environmental Protection Agency, and A4, environment and climate research. This expenditure supports the EPA in delivering its mandate to protect, improve and restore our environment through regulation, scientific research and collaboration. The just transition programme was set up to ensure the transition to a climate-neutral economy happens in a fair way leaving no one behind. Expenditure in 2024 amounted to €15 million, with a further €12.5 million provided to other Departments dealing with just transition matters. The programme supports the low-carbon transition in the midlands region through local-led projects, for example, Ferbane Business and Technology Park and Lough Ree Access for All. Some €26.5 million in contributions to international climate commitments was paid in 2024 as part of Ireland's commitment to provide €225 million in climate finance per year by 2025.

Over €100 million was provided in 2024 to the circular economy development programme. Within this, €38 million was spent on inland fisheries programmes, €23 million on waste management programmes and €14 million on geological survey programmes. One example of expenditure from the circular economy programme is the former Kerdiffstown private landfill, which was remediated by Kildare County Council with departmental funding of over €60 million. Formally opened as a community park in February 2025, it now includes all-weather playing pitches, a shower block, art installations, accessible walkways, seating areas and a children's playground. It is an excellent example of how a severe environmental hazard can be transformed into a focal point for a community to support healthy living.

Some €410 million was expended on the national broadband plan in 2024, reflecting strong progress. During the year, design work was completed on over 550,000 premises, network build was completed for over 340,000 premises and more than 325,000 premises across 26 counties were passed and available for immediate connection. In addition, 283 public broadband connection points were in place at community locations such as community centres, library hubs, local sports facilities and tourism sites. By the end of 2024, all 672 primary schools in remote rural locations within the intervention area had high-speed connections.

The Department was tasked with delivering significant policy programmes to achieve a climate-neutral, sustainable and digitally connected Ireland. The appropriation account of 2024 sets out where the Department has invested its resources to progress the achievement of this outcome in the context of significant challenges. This work in the areas of energy, climate and the environment continues in the Department today. My colleagues and I look forward to assisting the committee with any questions members may have.

Thanks for that, Ms Buckley. Please note we will suspend the meeting at about 12.30 p.m. for ten to 15 minutes and resume thereafter. I open the floor to members. The lead speaker today is Deputy Dolan, who has 15 minutes. All other members will have ten minutes. If time permits, we will then open up the discussion for a short supplementary round of questions.

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I thank the witnesses for being here, for the publication of the quarter 1 2026 purchase orders and for the information contained therein.

I asked a parliamentary question of the Department last October specifically focusing on its financial management system and contract management system. The response basically said the contract management system is devolved to the individual units and that is how it is managed. Going forward, will the Department make sure that all tenders published have contract award notices attached to them?

I am also looking to see Departments start trying to implement a golden thread of information across the data they publish. I can see who they paid money to, how much they paid them and when they paid them but I cannot tell what they paid them for, based on purchase order data. There is no column at the end that links me back to the original contract. If Departments were to add an extra column on their purchase order reports to specify the contract under which each payment was made, at least then I would be able to say a given contract has a certain number of purchase orders associated with it.

For the public, for me and the committee it would be beneficial. Is that something they would be willing to do?

I hate to do this for the first question I am asked by the PAC, but I might have to hand that over. First, of course we want to be as transparent as we can with the expenditure of public money and we are happy to do that. However, there may be specific complexities about the way we do purchases that might make that a little tricky. I will ask Ms Keyes to come in on that point.

Good morning. I will go back to the Deputy's first question about the contract management system. While the contracts are devolved we have centralised oversight from the centre. That is how we track and monitor expenditure going forward. In terms of the release of data of quarterly reports, the Deputy will have seen that it includes for those over €20,000 the supplier’s name, the service and the invoice value. We do not at this stage publish the data that links it back to specific contracts and there are a number of reasons for that.

The reason I think it important is the Department might have a consultant or adviser under different contracts doing different work. I cannot tell whether they are hitting their targets or not based on the fact they might have multiple contracts with the Department or multiple Departments across the State. I appreciate Ms Keyes's clarity on that, and I am conscious that the time goes quickly, so I move on to the next issue. This one caught me off-guard when I was looking through the accounts. The Department was fined - although that might not be the correct word - €4.5 million in its 2024 accounts for late transposition of legislation. Will the witnesses explain to me what happened there?

This relates to the communications function but arose under the 2024 appropriation account. It relates to the emergency warning service. Under EU law Ireland is obliged to introduce such a service. It is a complex arrangement that requires procurement of sophisticated kit. It cannot just be a simple matter of broadcasting it on the airwaves. It is the idea that if there were a flood in a particular location you would get a localised flood warning on your phone.

When I was a county councillor in Galway I was on the text alert system and I am on it to this day. If there is a tree down on a certain road, if there is a flood in an area or a road is closed the council can send out those texts and I receive them. Maybe I receive them by virtue of the fact that I was a member of the council.

Or you may have signed up to something.

I may have signed up to a mass alert.

This is one that pushes it into your phone.

Yes, I receive a text. Why is that not available for the wider public?

Ireland is obliged to introduce this under that directive. When the procurement was occurring, people were trying to work out technically how to best do it and had delayed transposition of that provision while they were working out the technicalities. The Commission was obviously concerned about this because we had not transposed one particular provision. Indeed, there were a number of provisions, but it ended up that one provision was not transposed.

How long did they give before they imposed the fine and what did the Department do to try to avoid the fine?

We ultimately transposed the entire directive. A decision was made to transpose it in a bootstrap way involving text messages. That would allow for the directive to be transposed so we were no longer at fault in non-transposition of the directive. Since then, the work has continued as I understand it.

What did they get fined for? Was it for not transposing or for transposing by bootstrap?

We got fined for a delay in transposing. By the time the court decision came we had transposed the directive.

Do they believe to this day that they are compliant with the directive?

We are in compliance with the directive, and the complaint has been closed. The directive has been transposed.

There has to be some accountability there. Somebody knew this fine was coming or that an impact would come by virtue of the fact that the legislation had not been transposed. What lessons have been learned from this and how do we make sure the Department is not in front of us again telling us it has been fined for other legislation?

There was a good lesson out of this, which is that the perfect is the enemy of the good. What people were trying to do was achieve a perfect technical result. That was not feasible in the timeframe we had to transpose the directive. Instead, a solution was arrived at that allowed us to transpose the directive and reduce the liability to the State for non-transposition. As I understand it, work is continuing on the technical aspects to bring in the system.

Okay, perfect is the enemy of the good, I could not agree more. One is greater than zero. I completely agree. Last week, on RTÉ there was an interesting piece about a man who had developed a flood warning system based on probabilities. He had done this at home in his spare time. Has the Department ever considered bringing in somebody like that and saying they would love to hear more about their idea and to see more citizen-led initiatives being brought in to the Civil Service? Ms Buckley said it was incredibly technical and complicated, and it has to be tendered for and procured, etc. What if there is somebody out there who has the good solution as opposed to the perfect one?

This is where I have to ask Mr. McCormack to respond because I am no longer responsible for this.

In the Department of culture, sport and communications now there is a public warning system project to develop a system that essentially-----

Would they liaise with the person who had that flood-based reporting system based on probabilities?

I can take that back.

Will he take that back? I think it would be worthwhile. I understand they have a complicated job to do, and they have to get it right when they are giving out warnings. I do not want to underplay it either and say it is an easy job because it is not. However, if somebody has developed something that might be able to aid them, whether it is implemented or not, I always think it is important to talk to as many people as possible.

I will see if we can do that because it is a complicated structure that involves liaising with stakeholders, the operators and so on to get something that, as Ms Buckley said, will push out to the right people at the right time in the right areas.

I move on to the Climate Action Fund. Are there a lot of unspent balances in the Climate Action Fund?

There are not a lot of unallocated balances. We are waiting for those balances to be drawn down by the projects to which they have been allocated. I will throw a few figures at the Deputy. We have so far taken in approximately €523.8 million in funds to the Climate Action Fund. We have allocated €478.9 million of those. Those have been allocated to specific projects. I have just sent a proposal to the Minister to allocate a further €40 million, so that would bring us pretty much to full allocation of the fund.

What percentage of that is drawn down?

Some €261 million of that has been spent.

What does she think is the main thing holding back the other €200 million from being drawn down?

It tends to be maturity of the projects. Where we can send it into something like the SEAI, which is good at pumping money into public sector retrofit or whatever, we have no problem spending the money. We have no problem spending the money by giving it to the Department of education and allowing it to put solar panels on schools. Half of the schools in the country have solar panels on them and the other half will be funded out of the Climate Action Fund. It is an efficient and effective way of putting money in where it is needed. Other projects are much slower. That is in part because the Climate Action Fund is intended to fund novel types of projects that we have not previously done in Ireland. A good example is district heating. We have a number of commitments under the Climate Action Fund to fund district heating. One of them is €5 million to fund start up to get people to prepare for a district heating project.

Has Ms Buckley a timeline for the €200 million that has not been drawn down yet? She knows the way the Commission fined the Department. Will it decommit funding if people do not draw it down and get it spent?

Ultimately we may have to put proposals to the Minister to decommit funding. If we think a particular proposal is not going to get the mark we will probably have to decommit funding and recommit it elsewhere. There are demands everywhere for funding for climate projects.

It is so important right across the country for people to see the benefits of climate fund and of climate transition in our communities for schools, community centres and GAA clubs by lowering their costs. It is a win-win, and the climate is benefiting. The message has to go out that the Climate Action Fund is incredibly positive, but it has to get out there.

It does, but there is a certain reluctance on our part because some of the projects that have been slower to the mark are the ones that are real leaders in developing a particular system. District heating is a great example. We have €50 million set aside in the fund for a Dublin district heating scheme. We are working hard with Dublin to try to get that scheme, which would be a leader in Ireland for district heating. We are the worst in Europe for renewable heating. We need to develop this structure in Ireland.

The next question is primarily around the carbon fund and carbon credits. What is a carbon credit?

That is an extremely good question. Essentially, it is where a project is done, say, by planting trees or something like that, which has an attributed carbon value to it so that it captures a level of greenhouse gas, and a price is put upon that. That can be bought and sold in various markets, or it can be done in what are called annual emission allocations, AEAs, across Europe.

The Department of energy and climate buys carbon credits. Is that correct?

Yes, we have bought carbon credits. We bought them internationally in the past, when that was permissible.

How much, roughly, has the Department bought historically?

Let me just make sure I have my figures here in front of me.

Purchases on the carbon fund totalled €118 million. Most of them have been utilised to meet Ireland's commitments.

We spent a further €2.9 million a few years ago on AEAs, and I think we spent €50 million or so in further purchases of carbon credits within Europe in more recent times.

If my understanding is correct, purchasing a carbon credit means you are purchasing someone else's obligation to store carbon.

You are purchasing somebody else's actual storage of carbon.

It is actual storage. What assurance does the Department have then that the carbon is actually being stored and the projects are delivering? There are significant international concerns about double-counting of carbon credits and multiple projects being committed, probably to multiple different countries. How does the Department avoid being led down the garden path?

When we come in here and look at the witnesses' accounts, we have a certain level of assurance and trust in them because of the work done by the C and AG. How does the Department have assurances that when it buys carbon credits, it is not just buying a piece of paper?

Europe is currently not permitted to buy international carbon credits, so we can only buy carbon credits currently within the European Union to meet our carbon targets. That is how we offer assurance, because we can rely on the systems in place in other EU member states to ensure the carbon credits are there and are necessarily audited and so on. The reason we ended up with the-----

When the Department goes out to buy them, is it buying them off individual projects or funds that are selling carbon credits?

In the early days, we were investing in funds. In present terms, we would be buying off individual projects. Mr. Quinlan or Mr. Carroll might have something to add on the recent purchase of the carbon credits.

We bought them directly from other member states. Where member states had overachieved in their own carbon targets, they were allowed to sell or trade that overachievement. It would have been directly from other EU member states.

The EU legal framework is quite stringent in its due diligence. The Deputy was concerned about how we know they are real. The EU has a very strict apparatus around that.

I have another concern. Carbon credits seem like a bit of a scam, and I do not mean to be cruel. Would we not be better off spending the money on actual projects on our own island that can store carbon or better improve the environment, as opposed to trying to buy pieces of paper to say we are the best child in the class?

We are spending our money as fast as we can to do just that. We have an enormous amount of capital money to spend in Ireland this year, and across our national development plan, NDP, for the next five years. The aim is to make sure we are taking as much climate action as we can at home. Because Ireland has obligations under EU law to meet certain targets, we need to be able to meet them across a range of sectors, whether that is agriculture, transport, heating in homes and businesses and so forth. To do that, we are investing money as quickly as we can.

I thank everyone for that.

I thank the witnesses for coming in. Following on from what has been discussed already, I have three short questions.

Regarding the carbon credits, from its own projections, the Department has indicated that Ireland could potentially face up to €26 billion in liabilities if our climate targets are not met. That is a huge figure for the taxpayer. My colleague discussed the carbon credits and their exchange. We know that some of these carbon credits are exchanged internationally in quite an unregulated environment. Has the Department considered establishing an Irish carbon credit exchange, so that we would be a beacon of regulation among EU states when it comes to carbon credits?

First, that is not an estimate by the Department. We have no estimate as to what the possible cost of compliance might be in the 2030s, mainly because it is impossible to estimate. It depends on so many variable factors that it is just not possible for us to give an estimate at present.

The Deputy asked an interesting question. It is not a live area of policy development at the moment, but we have had some approaches, for example, by ISIF, the investment fund, looking at trying to establish some form of carbon credit bank, working with some of the other State-owned enterprises that have areas of land that could be planted with trees or whatever. We could also re-wet bogs, which can build up carbon values. There may be scope to do that in time. We are in very early-stage, preliminary discussions - I do not want to get anyone's hope up - for something we could do in that space to offer Ireland. However, overall, it is most unlikely, based on our current projections, that we will have unused allocations, where we will meet our targets to such an extent that we would be able to sell carbon credits abroad.

We will have to buy them.

Assuming the compliance system works as is currently proposed under the effort-sharing regulation and other relevant regulations, Ireland will probably end up buying carbon credits or allocations from other EU member states.

In respect of the €4.5 million fine proposed for non-transposition, can the Department confirm the total cost to the taxpayer associated with this, not just the €4.5 million fine, but also any legal fees, consultancy costs and administration costs for the infringement?

Generally speaking, those costs are taken up by the Attorney General's office, so we would have to go back and examine what the additional costs might have been for any legal advice. I would not have that figure with me, but we can come back to the Deputy on that.

I am heartened to hear that 50% of schools have already been kitted out with solar panels and the Department is working on the other 50%. When will 100% of the schools in the country be complete?

Mr. Quinlan might have some idea of that.

That is being run by the Department of education. There has been a huge uptick in the scheme, which has really taken off. It is being procured in the usual way by schools and boards of management, so there is a huge impetus to do it. We are trying to work with the Department of education to encourage it to spend the money as quickly as possible. The money is there waiting in the account. This is exactly the type of thing we want to fund from the Climate Action Fund.

This is work that tends to be done over the summer break. By the way, in the first round, each individual school came in as less than the estimate we had originally from the Department of education, so it is being run very efficiently at local level, which is very good to see. I suspect the majority of schools will be done over the next two summers, but we will wait and see. We will get those results back from the Department of education.

Regarding the general underspend across Vote 29, Ms Buckley explained reasons for that, for example, that there were allocations to other parties which were not drawn down.

The Department requires a Supplementary Estimate of €520 million for the electricity credits in 2024. Despite nearly €1 billion being spent on domestic electricity credits in the previous year, we saw an underspend, at the same time, across the Vote. Was the Department consciously underspending in the knowledge that this spend on the electricity credits was in the offing? It is hard to understand why half a billion euro was not budgeted for, given that in the previous year the Department spent nearly €1 billion, and there was no budget whatsoever for the electricity credits in the 2024 budget.

The electricity credit was a budgetary decision taken towards the end of the year, in October, and the Department had not been funded for it because it was a budgetary decision taken in that space. As in the previous year, we had to have a Supplementary Estimate to fund that because obviously we did not have half a billion lying around.

We might have.

If only. The underspends on the funds are because the funds are for different purposes and they are allocated but not drawn down. It is not that we were holding money back with the hope of getting money elsewhere.

There is a very careful negotiation with the Department of public expenditure. Part of the Supplementary Estimate we got was for the acceleration of the national broadband plan but we were made to find half of the cost of that capital fund from within our own capital spend. The Department of public expenditure funded only half of it, to my very great chagrin. We found savings across the Department in our capital spend to make sure we could cover the totality of the cost of the acceleration activity of the national broadband plan. It was a good news story, as more premises were being passed and connected to high-speed Wi-Fi.

My next question is on the climate action fund and I want to make some general comments about the SEAI grants and how they are administered. They are generous but people look at this and see moneys left in the State coffers generally while their home heating bills, gas bills and electricity bills are all rising. There seems to be a disconnect between the moneys in the coffers and the reality on the ground. For someone refurbishing a door, the grant is €800 but doors cost more than €5,000 these days. It is not the massive incentive that perhaps the Department thought it would be.

A big issue in Dublin is boilers. Many properties have oil boilers. Throughout the country, we see oil or gas boilers. People are offered refurbished ones. What is happening does not reflect the reality on the ground. People cannot afford the deep retrofit. Now, people will not go to a home to do work for less than €50,000. There is a disconnect on the ground between the people who need this money in a cost-of-living crisis and who want to do something for the environment but cannot do so. Does Ms Buckley think the schemes we have are fit for purpose? I would be interested to hear her comments on this.

I am a very big supporter of the ancillary benefits people get through the fuel allowance, such as house wrapping. It is a great scheme and it should be rolled out. Maybe we could take it away from the fuel allowance because not enough people qualify for it. More people should have more access to the house wrapping scheme. I would like to hear Ms Buckley's general comments on these retrofitting schemes and the just transition.

No more than committee members, we are very concerned about the prices of fuel, particularly fossil fuels, given recent events. It is particularly challenging for people who heat their homes with kerosene because it is one of the most affected fuels. If we are to take any advantage from this crisis, it is that it encourages us to go further down the path of trying to retrofit people's homes and get them off fossil fuels.

The Minister very much shares these concerns, and in January he overhauled our scheme of grants with the SEAI. We have included windows and doors for the first time as an ancillary measure, and very generous grants are available for these. He also increased the grant amounts across a range of areas. We have an enhanced warmer home scheme, which provides free retrofits for people who really cannot afford to go down that route. We have also introduced a passport scheme whereby if people cannot do a full retrofit but can do windows and doors, insulation or another element, they can come back a few times to the SEAI and get a number of different grants. This is an important part as it allows people to pace themselves. We also have cheap loans under the home energy loan scheme. People can get much cheaper interest rates to help them fund the transition.

On energy prices more generally, the Minister established the national energy affordability task force last year. It was set up to look at how prices were structured in Ireland, how we could move people onto less costly forms of energy, and how we could tackle what is known as the spark gap, which might be the difference between a fossil fuel and an electrical solution for heating. The work of this task force is being supercharged by current events. The Minister has asked the task force to produce its final report in July, which will then feed into the budgetary decisions we need to make on potential taxation and expenditure measures. The team, some of whom are sitting behind me, are working very hard on delivering on it.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today and I know they have probably done a lot of preparatory work. The first question that jumps out at me is about the contradictions or complexities of having climate and energy in the one Department. Are they often at odds with each other, as much as they to be seen to be complementary?

That is an extremely good question. It is probably the best place to put climate in the first instance because the goal is that we put as much renewable energy as possible onto our system and then electrify as much as we can. If we follow this as the line of logic, we make the electricity system renewable to the greatest extent possible and then electrify heat and transport. This then means that the heat and transport are themselves renewable because they are being powered by electricity.

With the likes of the energy required for data centres and everything else, surely some of it goes against some of the instincts on climate. How are the two of these balanced? We have a climate need and an energy need, and they do clash.

I will pull it back a small bit. Renewable energies tend to be intermittent energies. They are there when the sun shines and the wind blows. Our electricity system has to be available. There has to be a complete balance between when electricity is delivered and when it is asked for. To achieve this balance, we tend to need to have backup systems, which in Ireland are gas based. As demand for electricity grows, we need to provide gas-based solutions or other types of solution to balance that, for example, procuring a greater number of more efficient gas-fired power generators for our system. Deputy Neville is aware that we need to make sure we have a backup gas system so that in the hopefully unlikely - touch wood - event that anything ever happened to our gas interconnectors, we would have a supply of gas on the island that would help us power our electricity system.

On that, we have 43% or 44% renewables. What do we feel is the highest number we could go to for renewables, within reason, over the next five years? Obviously, if we had batteries, it could be an infinite number.

Our target for renewables is 80% by 2030. On our current with existing measures, WEM, and with additional measures, WAM, projections-----

Will we reach that target?

We will probably reach about 70%.

Ms Buckley feels we can get to 70%.

Given the rate of growth of renewables; we have over 8 GW of renewables on the system and our peak demand at present is 6 GW. We already have more renewable potential generation on the system then we have peak demand. Demand, of course, is growing very quickly. The OECD recently produced a report in which it indicated that Ireland could feasibly make it to 90% renewables on its grid, with a balanced grid.

To change the subject, how much carbon tax was collected in 2024?

I have some global figures but I am not sure how much was collected in carbon tax in 2024.

Roughly.

What I can say is that since carbon tax was introduced in 2009, €6.2 billion has been collected.

I would like the figure for 2024. Ideally, I would like the figure for 2025 but we do not have it. I also want to check how much of it was spent.

Carbon tax is not all spent by the Department.

I know but is it collected by the Department?

It is collected through the taxation system and is distributed among Departments. Roughly 50% of it comes to the Department and 50% is spread through the Departments of agriculture and social protection, with some smaller amounts to other Departments.

Questions have been raised about it not being spent.

Is Deputy Neville asking whether it is recouped back to the Exchequer?

No. I am asking whether it is being spent on the schemes that it should be spent on.

Carbon tax is collected. It comes from petrol and diesel. The theory behind it, correct me if I am wrong, is that it is to spent on environmentally beneficial projects.

That is, indeed, what it is ring-fenced for.

But is it spent?

In the event that it is not spent in a particular year for the reasons perhaps that we have just discussed-----

To be honest, that is the question I want to ask. How much was collected in 2024? How much was spent in 2024?

In 2024, we recouped €14 million from our SEAI grants, which is where our carbon tax goes, back to the Exchequer. That is the amount that we would-----

That is not the question. The question is: on a high level, how much did we collect? Of the taxpayers' money that was taken from the public, how much did we spend?

I am probably at a bit of a loss. Would Eoin Dormer from the Department of public expenditure have those figures to hand?

It is important because carbon tax is a controversial tax. It is beneficial in a way because it widens the tax base, but at the same time it is supposed to and should be spent in a way and I would like to know if it is spent in that way.

Sorry, I have the figure of what was collected. In 2024, €788 million was collected in carbon tax.

How much of that was spent? Ms Buckley is saying half of that spent by the Department of climate. How much did the Department spend?

I would not know because half of that went to other Departments. We underspent by €16 million-----

The Department underspend by €16 million.

-----of our allocation of €388 million.

In fairness, that is not bad.

We spent almost all of it.

The Department spent approximately 90%. What are the main projects? Where did that money go from the Department's side?

That is almost entirely spent on residential retrofit. Now some part of it goes to things like the Just Transition Fund but the vast majority of it goes into both residential and non-residential retrofit schemes.

Is Ms Buckley happy with how the SEAI is working, because even my colleague brought it up? They can be complex schemes. They can be hard to avail of. Is Ms Buckley happy that the money is getting spent in the way it should be?

Generally speaking, although the SEAI needs to ramp up very severely its capacity to spend money effectively. This year it has already got €200 million more in allocation than it did in 2024. We need them to make it as user-friendly as possible for people and businesses to claim that money, have as little attrition as possible between application and actual drawdown, and to some extent - I do not want to say we need public servants to take a bit more risk and repeat what is being said in public at the moment-----

We had that in Irish Rail earlier on.

-----we need public servants to take a little bit more risk here even though it is public money. We are keeping a very close eye on the SEAI's capacity to spend that increased allocation this year and if we feel that there is any difficulty about the authority spending it, we will switch it out into different schemes, including, maybe, in education or whatever.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, in his opening statement, referenced the 702,000 carbon credits. What was the total cost of that? Was the value of that written off or how does that work?

It had a nil value at that point.

What would have been the original cost?

It is very hard to say because it was part of an allocation in two funds.

The rough calculation we did, and once again, it was on the back of a fag packet calculation, was approximately €2 million. Would that be correct?

It would be a bit higher, probably approximately €2.5 million.

So it was a €2.5 million write-off.

Yes, if you take an average cost of acquisition approach but maybe a marginal approach might be arguable as well.

We will say, even if we are being conservative, over €2 million of money was-----

Can I explain why that was? There was a change in EU rules, largely, I suspect, because of the concerns expressed by the Deputy's colleagues. These were investments into international funds that were to do with bioeconomy, bioforestry and things like that, and the EU then changed their rules to make it tighter that you could no longer use carbon credits invested in funds like that to offset against emissions at home. The EU changed the rules and that meant those credits were unusable.

Okay, fine. I presume solar panel grants go through the Department. With the current climate crisis and, I suppose, with our urgency given that impact to help people, are there plans to increase things like residential solar grants? We hear a lot of talk around that. Do we have the ability to make those changes in the Department this year for next year? Is Ms Buckley seeking those?

We are certainly looking at all supports as part of the national energy affordability task force but in the Department, we are hesitant to say to people to wait a while and they might get a better grant in six months' time because then people do not apply.

It can change the market.

You change the market. The practice has been if you apply and there is some tweak to the grant amount mid-application, you will get the added value anyway. One should not hesitate in applying.

We have been really heartened by the fact that with the introduction of the new scheme by the Minister in January, there has been a huge increase in applications into the SEAI. They have processed 29,000 applications for residential retrofitting in the first three months of this year, which is a real big uptake. On some schemes, they have had a 100% increase in application. Given they have all this money to spend, we would hate for a view to come out of this committee that people should hang back, wait and they might get something better in a few months. We would suggest that people, if they are thinking about investing in solar panels - by the way, it is the single thing you can do now to reduce your energy cost - and if they have the few bob and they are thinking of doing, and even if they do not like the look of them, they will not see them after two months. I know myself, because I got them installed after I got this job. They become invisible to you.

With the targets, there is a lot of questioning about the cost to the Exchequer of potential missed climate targets. What is the next major timeline on that and what are the amounts that we could risk losing? Is it a 2030 target? Is it 2029? Is the potential hit €100 million, €1 billion or €100,000?

First of all, the timeline when this will become clearest is 2032, although there will be some interim stages where some cost of compliance might arise under different directives. However, we cannot estimate what the cost will be because it depends on too many variables. If Ireland does not meet its targets, by how much it will not meet them and to what extent will other EU member states meet their targets and have credits available to be sold - and at current estimation very few member states will? What then will be the cost of the carbon credits, if any available, and how will Ireland be placed in terms of purchasing them because some very big member states are likely to undershoot their targets on current estimation and they will be in the market as well, if there is a market? At this point, we are talking already to the Commission, just indicating to them, if this system is going to work, whether it will work in the 2030s and if not, whether there are ways in which national investments can be counted against what might be needed in terms of compliance because we feel that the way the system is set up, it may be quite problematic to implement down the line so there may be things we can do in the meantime to make sure that it becomes a workable system and make sure that we do the necessary investments across Europe to reduce Europe's target because it is a European target we have to meet. Ireland just has a bit of the European target.

I thank Ms Buckley for her time.

I welcome everybody here today. I will go back to the transposition and the fees that the Department incurred there for €4.5 million. Am I correct?

That was a fine.

Why did the Department have to pay a fine? Was the Department not given adequate time to implement it?

There was adequate time to implement it. What occurred was a number of provisions were not implemented effectively and there was one that was not transposed because the officials involved were trying to put in place the technical solution underneath and that took more time than we had to transpose the directive. Eventually, as I say, a decision was taken, including by me, that we would implement an interim transposition solution, which has gone in place and which meant we were only fined for our late transposition as opposed to an ongoing fine for non-transposition. At least one other member state was fined an ongoing fine for non-transposition, which is much dearer. It limited our exposure to the fine but, unfortunately, because we were late in transposing that, particularly that one provision, we ended up incurring a fine from the court.

Most of Europe did not incur the fine. Am I correct in saying that there were only ten other states that incurred it?

That is correct.

Did the Department not have notification, in 2018, of this? I still do not get why it was not implemented, if the Department had so many years to get it planned and get the directive transposed.

As I say, the majority of the directive was transposed.

Is it done now? Is the emergency call service implemented now?

An interim solution for transposition purposes was put in place but, subsequently, that area of work was transferred away from my Department. Mr. McCormack can explain where the emergency call answering service is right now.

According to my notes, this has gone on from 2018. It is now 2026 and it is still not implemented. Is that correct?

As the Secretary General said, it is implementing a form, and now there is a more permanent solution.

Emergency call service, is that correct?

No, it is the public warning system.

Is that in place now?

It is in place-----

It is in place?

-----but there is a more permanent solution being implemented.

I have never heard any of that.

It will be more focused on a geographic basis.

Okay. From 2018, when the office first got notification, we still do not have this available in Ireland. Is that correct?

There is a system in place but not a current solution.

I have never heard of any emergency service. I have never received anything on my phone. I know they have something in the North of Ireland, because I live on the Border, and I have received that notification from the North, but I have never received it from the Republic. After getting a €4.5 million fine, we still have not got it. Are we going to incur another fine because we still have not got it? No. How many open infringements and proceedings are ongoing at the moment?

Currently, against my Department there are 11. We closed three in recent times, which was great. Of those 11, eight are at the preliminary stage, so three have reached a reasoned opinion stage only. We working very hard trying to make sure that we do not move past that stage.

How much in fines will be charged for those if we do not make those directives?

It is very hard to calculate because-----

Would it be similar to-----

-----a lot of stages would have to be gone through and it would depend if at that point we had transposed or were in continue non-compliance.

Would it be similar to the €4.5 million?

It would be very hard to say, Deputy. I would not be able to speculate.

How long have we had notification of those directives that we have not implemented either?

A number of them have come through in the last couple of years. The largest one and the one that we would be probably at greatest risk on is the renewable energy directive, RED III, which is extremely complex. We are working very hard with partner Departments, such as the Department of housing around the permitting aspects of that. I should say that all 27 member states are currently in infringement on RED III because it is so complex. Ireland is very much not on its own in finding it very difficult to do that. We have a very large team working on it in my Department and I know there is a big team working on it in the Department of housing and other Government Departments. We will work very hard to make sure that we do not get to fine stage on that, if at all possible.

I want to move on to electric vehicles. How are we currently doing with our target for 2030 on electric vehicles here in Ireland?

I am actually not directly responsible for electric vehicles, but I happen to know we have met our 2025 target. We have had a recent surge in purchases of electric vehicles, which is great because electrification of transport is a very tricky area. It is great to see that this is taking place.

Are we going to meet our 2030 target?

I would not have that in my head, but on WEM and WAM, we are probably not quite at our 2030 target.

The trajectory has massively improved in recent times.

Have we enough electric chargers?

We are trying to fund some of that. We do not have responsibility for-----

How many electric chargers have we? You do not know how many electric chargers we have Statewide?

No, because the Department of Transport is responsible for electric chargers.

Okay, I will move on then from that one. In relation to the TAMS grant, farmers were benefiting greatly from aid for renewable energy but that seems to have been cut for some reason. Can I be given an indication why that would have been cut for solar panels under TAMS for farmers to use?

I wonder is that a Department of agriculture scheme.

Okay, so you are not involved in that one?

I do not believe so.

No. It is agriculture, but we do work very closely with all the sectors. One of the ways we are trying to spend on the Climate Action Fund is on schemes across the various sectors, so we are working with the Department.

It would be beneficial instead of incurring a fine in 2032, would it not, to ensure that we have plenty of different grants available?

The Deputy has put her finger on this being a whole-of-government response. It is the responsibility of agriculture, it is the responsibility of transport, it is our responsibility. Every Government Department has climate responsibilities and they all have to deliver.

In fairness, as the Secretary General said, the Department of Transport has come to us lately on the Climate Action Fund, and we have immediately moved that up through the line to try to seek approval for additional supports on EVs.

Carbon tax was mentioned earlier. I did not quite catch the figures. Was a figure of €14 million mentioned for what was taken in from the carbon tax on petrol and diesel?

No. What happened was we recouped €16 million in 2024, which is in fact the correct figure, in our allocation of capital which is derived from the carbon tax. We spent a very substantial amount. We had €388 million allocated to us. We spent €372 and returned €16 million to the Exchequer.

That was spent within the Department?

Yes.

That is okay. Regarding elevated energy costs, Ireland has the highest electric usage and the highest cost in the whole of Europe. Data centres seem to be using an awful lot of our energy here in Ireland at the moment and I have one issue in relation to EirGrid. In the area where I live, they are trying to overground it. There have been plenty of protests about it because we want it underground. I had asked the Minister at one stage in a parliamentary question if the Department gave any money to EirGrid and his answer was that it did not. Further to that, I read in documents last night that EirGrid actually got €3.5 billion from the Department. Is that correct?

No, not as yet. As part of its NDP decisions last summer, the Government decided for the first time ever, as a shareholder in both ESBN and EirGrid, to invest a total across the two companies of €3.5 billion as shareholder in equity. The €1.5 billion was already invested last year in ESBN and €2 billion will be invested in EirGrid in the course of the year.

So the Department is giving €2 billion to EirGrid?

The Government is investing as a shareholder in EirGrid, yes. However, otherwise EirGrid's actual construction activities, including the North-South interconnector, which is what I presume the Deputy is talking about-----

Yes, that is what I am talking about.

-----and which she knows is a really critical project for consumers of electricity both north and south of the Border-----

How much has been spent on EirGrid so far? It is still not operational and it is still not underground.

That project is an overground, overhead- line project to be built on both sides of the Border.

My constituents do not want it overground and they have requested on numerous occasions that it would be underground. I want to ask for the general public today, how much money has been spent on EirGrid so far.

EirGrid is not Exchequer funded generally and it does not do its work through Exchequer funding. It does it under decisions taken by-----

The Market Cap Fund gives money to EirGrid, is that not correct? And the Department also gave the €2 billion.

No. EirGrid collected the Market Cap Fund for us-----

Yes, for you

----- but it is not us giving it money to fund its-----

Yes, but it is still my constituents' money and everybody else's money that has gone into it. The Market Cap Fund did not just appear. It is actually money belonging to people.

That fund came from electricity providers. I will ask colleagues from CRU to explain how EirGrid is funded, because it is probably better that the regulator explain it.

I thank the committee for inviting us here today and I thank the Deputy for her questions. In terms of how EirGrid is funded, EirGrid and ESBN, which are two network providers - system operators, as they are called - within the State, are funded by over 2.5 million residential and business consumers through network tariffs. Network tariffs feed into the retail bills of Bord Gáis, Electric Ireland and all the retailers that supply us pay, which would pay those network tariffs to ESBN and EirGrid. That is the funding. As recently as December we published the latest funding plan for the five years from 2026 to 2030. This sets out from €14 billion up to €18 billion for both system operators to spend and which will be recovered from consumers, not from the Exchequer. The Exchequer funding, as the Secretary General said, was for a balance sheet investment in order to allow those companies to borrow and spend the money over the next ten to 20 years.

In hindsight, is EirGrid not actually allowing the networks to charge a tariff that the consumer has to pay? The State is actually allowing the electricity companies to charge that tariff. Is that correct?

Yes, is the short answer, which is regulated.

What is the percentage of the tariff?

The percentage of a tariff within your bill is in the order of approximately 30%.

That is the percentage that the State is allowing consumers to be charged on their bill. That is an additional 30%.

It is for the use of the network that is built across the country.

It is 30%. It is another tax on consumers. That 30% is what the Government is allowing.

It is-----

It is.

-----a cost recovery mechanism that applies across all of Europe.

It is 30% extra that everybody is being charged.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today. I will return to the question of the fine on the EU directive. The answer to the question was that a decision was made to have an interim implementation of the directive to avoid higher fines. Why was there not an earlier decision on that?

I wish I could say. The decision was taken soon after I became the Secretary General. The proposal was brought to me by my then assistant secretary, who was also newly appointed. Fresh heads said we should do it this way instead of trying to pursue it.

If we had taken that decision 12 months earlier, could we have avoided the fine?

It is very hard to say. As it was, we avoided having an ongoing daily fine, which was a real priority.

The reason I say it is that €4.5 million of public money is significant. All of the blame for it, or the reasons for it, lie within the public sector or the Government. There is no one else. There are no other third party elements. It is a very significant amount of money. This committee deals with many issues with procurement, external contractors and everything else. It is a whopping amount of money when the decisions seem to lie within the Department.

All I can say is that when I arrived, there was very active revised consideration being given to how to resolve this infringement before it got to that point and the solution was proposed-----

Is there not a system within the Department that flags critical decision-making or critical project management phases that are likely to lead to potential fines if action is not taken?

Looking specifically at the transposition of directives, which is the important thing here, we are actively managing the infringement and transposition processes. There is regular reporting to the management board about infringement-----

At what point in that process does the alarm bell go off to indicate that if a decision to transpose is not taken, we are likely to face a fine?

We are always actively working on the transposition of directives but the real alarm will go off-----

My father-----

-----when there is an initial warning.

My father has a great phrase: "Do not confuse effort with results."

Well, indeed. What happens is that the real alarm bell goes off when we get an initial infringement notice from the Commission. As I said, we have 11 of those infringements currently in the Department. There is quarterly reporting on those to my management board as to where they are. We check regularly and ensure we are resourcing the necessary teams to do that. For example, on the red directive, which I have indicated is the one that I am primarily concerned with because it is very complex, we have put in resources across the Department to try to deliver and drive that implementation as best we can. There are some areas that need a little more. We will keep it under very active supervision.

We also engage in package discussions with the Commission regularly, across our infringements, which is a novel way of doing it. The Directorate-General for the Environment is one of our major interlocutors. It would have infringements across multiple Departments. We would bring all those Departments together, go, collectively, to meet representatives of the Directorate-General or they come to meet us, and we work through each stage of where those are. The Commission tends to be very familiar with where we are at in any particular transposition journey. By making sure we have good communications with the Commission, we try to avoid having-----

I am just conscious of time. On that specific issue, could Ms Buckley provide the committee with the timeline of the work done on the transposition of that directive in writing, particularly the time when the decision was made to have the temporary transposition?

I absolutely will. That is no problem at all.

I want to move to the Climate Action Fund. Deputy Ardagh talked about the reality of millions and billions in funds, and the reality of schemes on the ground. I cannot tell the witnesses how popular the better energy, warmer homes scheme is. It has a real impact on people's lives. They do not have a huge amount of savings lying to one side and they have better energy and warmer homes. The scheme does what it says.

There are difficulties with the scheme. I have dealt with those with the SEAI is some detail. They centre around the European Union's decision not to allow any State sponsorship of carbon-consuming devices. The reality is that there are now people being rejected from that scheme for insulation, or the wraparound, as people call it, because they have a gas boiler. The reason they are being rejected is that there is not the energy improvement that the scheme requires. I am saying this on behalf of and to the SEAI, and to the witnesses: we have to get a workaround on that issue. What is happening is that people do not have the cash to buy a new boiler so they end up being excluded from the wraparound. Often, the SEAI will now say that people can get a boiler, which it cannot pay for, and it will then put in the wraparound. That is a mad scheme. The alternative is that we give people heat pump systems, which is saddling them with higher electricity costs for a scheme that is about trying to help people who are in energy poverty. We have to get a workaround on carbon consuming devices. I do not know how we do it but it has to be done. We also have people who are eligible for the better energy, warmer homes schemes but by virtue of there being waiting lists of 18 months or two years, when their boiler breaks they have no way of getting a replacement heating system of any sort. They have no money in their accounts or savings to replace the boiler. We cannot give them a grant the way we used to. They certainly do not have €10,000 for a heat pump. Yet, they are eligible for a full wraparound and heat pump. They would take all of it if it were available in an emergency. We are telling them to wait for two years until we get to them under the better energy, warmer homes scheme, and have no heating. That is not an answer either.

I note that having given out to us for incurring a fine for non-transposition of a directive, the Deputy is now encouraging us to break European law. I do not think we can do a workaround for something that we are precluded from doing under European law.

That is a very clever answer but it does not solve the problem for the constituents I asked about.

It does not. The SEAI is working on a pilot scheme for high impact heat pumps, which I think will go some way to that issue. It needs to do the pilot. We have recently introduced-----

Has there been any attempt to use the Climate Action Fund to increase the roll-out of the pilot? I am familiar with it because the SEAI has talked to me about it. Are we using the Climate Action Fund in other ways to assist with the development of technology? There is a technology gap here, and I accept that.

We have not been asked specifically to use the Climate Action Fund for that. It is currently being funded under the money we are giving to the SEAI from our national development plan, NDP, allocation. We have introduced a 100% grant scheme for attic and wall insulation for people on the warmer homes scheme as a preliminary so they do not have to wait for the grant of the full warmer homes scheme to come through. We are working hard to try to reduce that spark gap, which the Deputy has talked about. If you go off a gas or kerosene boiler, you no longer have the fossil fuel bill but you do have the electrical bill. The question is whether we can do something about the cost of electricity. That is what the national energy affordability task force, NEAT, is for.

There is a lack of a solar element to the better energy, warmer homes scheme. It would assist if the scheme included the installation of solar panels. We could then tell people to take the heat pump because they will have solar panels to offset the cost of that electricity.

Okay.

We would also be switching from being a lower cost scheme to a very expensive per cost scheme because of what we are doing on gas. I accept-----

I will happily take that suggestion away and we will feed it into the mix.

I will return to one item. The witnesses might know that I am the author of the Energy Poverty Reduction (Use of Surplus Renewable Energy) Bill, which is about us switching off the surplus renewable energy that comes at night time because we do not have ways to capture it. The Bill is simple. It calls on the Minister to have a strategy within the next 12 months for renewable energy. The Minister recently wrote to me. I have not been able to get a parliamentary question to get him to confirm it on the record of the House. I might get Ms Buckley to do that here. The Minister wrote to me and stated that based on previous correspondence, he was pleased to confirm that the Department was now leading the development of an integrated strategy on the use of renewable surplus energy and that it would co-ordinate technical grid limits for system non-synchronous penetration, SNSP, flexible demand, storage deployment and interconnector flows. Is Ms Buckley familiar with the commitment the Minister has made to me in writing or with the development of a strategy for renewable energy?

I do not think I am familiar with that particular commitment and am not sure where that letter came from.

Certainly, we will be looking at important aspects of that as part of the work of the task force, particularly things like tariffs. Tariff reform would be a necessary part of trying to get people to use energy at times when it is relatively cheap in the system. It is also part of managing demand. If we can get people to use energy at night, when there is a lot of wind but we do not need it, it helps with that, and we empower consumers through that way of doing it.

Is the secret of that not also having better storage options at night? For example, no matter how much people use their energy at night, there will be lower demand at night, yet the wind turbines are turning. Therefore, if we have them heating hot water tanks at night or charging their cars at night, we are effectively using those devices as batteries.

I agree 100%, and in domestic storage also.

We also need commercial battery storage. The point I am making is that we need a strategy for that renewable energy.

We are certainly going to be working on all of those elements under the auspices of the task force. A key part of that is enabling consumers to change their behaviour, both business and domestic commuters, so they switch to doing things like charging their tanks at night or, in my case, switching to charging my EV at night. By the way, we are already seeing that change. We are seeing an increase in demand at 2 a.m.

It is infrastructure that will assist them to do that, for example having an electric car, having a smart meter or having the devices that allow them to do that. Behaviour alone is not the issue. People want to do these things, but they often do not have the infrastructure or technology available to allow them to do it.

And we need the tariffs. We need dynamic tariffs, and I know the crew is working on introducing dynamic tariffs very soon. We already have more than 2 million homes fitted with smart meters. We have a lot of the kit. We just need to make sure that we put all of the systems and structures in place to enable people to make those behavioural changes.

Ms Buckley might write to me on that commitment.

That is no problem. We will write to the committee.

We will take a short break.

I thank everybody for being here. I apologise in advance because my position down the pecking order in the speaker's list means I will be repeating some of the questions. I will start off by asking about the overall position in relation to our targets as a country for carbon reduction. We are committed to reducing our carbon output by 51% by 2030 in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. I understand the EPA recently said we will probably achieve about a 23% reduction. Does Ms Buckley agree with the EPA's assessment on that?

The EPA's assessment was based on the WAM - "with additional measures" - assessment. On the basis of a WEM - "with existing measures" - assessment, it estimated that we would achieve about 9% of our targets. We rely on the EPA. It is an authoritative source of research on this matter. It is shortly about to produce its new WEM and WAM estimates. We have to assume that when the EPA is talking about this, there are a lot of assumptions underlying it and a lot of technical work going into it.

Broadly, Ms Buckley does not disagree.

Broadly speaking, based on current Government policies, yes, that is the-----

That is a revised downward projection by the EPA. It previously estimated 29% and now it is down to 23%.

It was, last year. We are awaiting this year's figures which the EPA will publish shortly. We are hopeful it might show a slight improvement, but we do not know. We do not have those figures as yet.

Okay. I want to turn to the consequences of us not meeting the target. I know Ms Buckley touched on this earlier. What are the consequences for Ireland for not meeting the target and for falling well short of it, by the looks of it?

There are two potential consequences. The first one applies in the event that Ireland and other countries do not meet their targets under what is called the effort-sharing regulation, which is the main one we would be talking about here. There are potential costs of compliance under a number of the regulations but let us talk about the effort-sharing regulation to keep it simple. The effort-sharing regulation covers those sectors that are not covered at the moment by the emissions trading scheme, ETS, so not electricity and other things. As it happens, electricity is where we have made the most progress.

Will Ms Buckley be as brief as possible because I have to get through these questions?

Sure. The consequence would be that we would have to start buying compliance from other member states, and it can only be bought from other member states.

We buy credits, in effect, from other states-----

If they are available.

-----that are ahead of the game in terms of their targets.