The war has brought escalating oil and gas prices and a consequent cost-of-living challenge here in Ireland. It makes sense that we should reduce our gas and oil use for that reason alone. It also makes sense to reduce radically our fossil fuel use because money spent on oil and gas in Ireland and across Europe, whether it is spent by individuals or by the State, goes towards Vladimir Putin's war machine. That machine is slaughtering innocent Ukrainians at this moment. Reports suggest the money flowing to Russia from Europe could be up to €1 billion per day and it may be more. As the Minister said in response to Deputy Durkan, who is sitting beside me, money that is being spent here in Ireland on oil and gas is giving Putin the power to wage war on an innocent country. That is unconscionable. Does the Government intend to introduce a range of emergency measures, in addition to the measures that have already been introduced, not alone to save on costs, but also to stop funding Putin’s war on the Ukrainian people?

As I said to Deputy Doherty and others earlier, we have engaged in a series of measures. While the war has been happening for the recent two weeks, gas plants started to restrict the gas last year. This has been ongoing for a year. It is among a number of other reasons gas prices have become high. We will go further in the coming days, when the SEAI will come out with a public information campaign to help people understand what they could do and what efficiency measures we could introduce so that we keep the money here at home.

We will go further within the coming three or four weeks, where the SEAI, my Department and other Government Departments will come out with further measures - we discussed this in the Oireachtas committee the other day - the likes of time-of-day pricing, which might allow householders go further to save money and also to save the use of fossil fuels. Those sorts of practical measures are next up. We will have to go further.

The Government is also looking, as we said at the Oireachtas committee the other day, at task forces to accelerate the delivery of renewable heating, sustainable transport, offshore wind among a number of other things. There will be different Departments, different agencies and outside expertise coming together to set the sorts of teams we had during Covid-19. This is so we can be fast in making the changes that we need to be made.