We will now suspend briefly to allow the witnesses to enter.

Apologies have been received from Senator Noonan and Deputy Ó Cearúil. Session 1, which is from 12.30 p.m. to 2.30 p.m., is a discussion with Ms Oonagh Buckley, Secretary General, and officials on the climate action plan. The committee agreed to undertake this meeting to discuss the current climate action plan. I welcome the following representatives from the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment: Ms Oonagh Buckley; Mr. Barry Quinlan, assistant secretary; and Mr. Paul O'Neill, principal officer leading the climate policy, planning and implementation initiatives. They are all very welcome.

I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off. Witnesses and members are 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 that person or entity. Therefore, if a statement is potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity the speaker will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that any such direction is complied with.

I will invite the witnesses to make an opening statement to a maximum of five minutes. Once that has been delivered, I will call on the members of the committee in the order they indicate to me to put their questions. We operate a rota system which provides each member with an initial five minutes for engagement with witnesses. It is important to note that the five minutes is for both questions and answers. It is, therefore, essential for members to put their questions succinctly and for witnesses to please be succinct in their responses. The duration of this meeting is limited and therefore the times must be strictly adhered to. I ask everybody to be focused on their contributions.

I invite the Secretary General to make her opening statement on behalf of the Department Climate, Energy and the Environment.

Good afternoon to the Chair and the members of the committee. I thank them for the invitation to speak today on the important matter of climate action and the climate action plan.

The programme for Government sets out the commitment to take sustained action to tackle the climate crisis and decarbonise the economy, while also improving Ireland’s competitiveness and delivering a strong and stable economy. I can assure the committee and wider public that the Department is working across government to address this significant challenge. We are making progress. We have had three consecutive years of emissions reductions and are at the lowest level of emissions in 35 years. The Environmental Protection Agency’s latest projections report shows that Ireland is now projected to achieve the first carbon budget. In addition, both with existing measures and with additional measures – the famous WEM and WAM - scenarios are improved from last year.

Ireland is a world leader in integrating renewable energy onto our grid, with a record 8 GW of renewable generation capacity now there. Looking to the future, the Government has approved an unprecedented investment of €18.9 billion in the grid for the period 2026 to 2030 to support the electrification of homes, businesses and transport to, in effect, support Ireland becoming one of the world’s electrostates. We are on track to more than halve the emissions of our electricity system, with emissions now projected to reduce by between 53% and 60% by 2030.

We have five phase one offshore wind developments in the planning system and the successful offshore renewable electricity support scheme, ORESS, Tonn Nua offshore wind auction concluded last November. It was the only successful auction within the EU last year and will deliver enough clean electricity to power 1 million homes.

These are all long-term, multi-annual efforts supported by a series of climate action plans. These significant bodies of work require transformational change and buy-in from the Irish public. We know the desire for climate action among the Irish public is both deep and widespread. Climate Conversations 2024 found that the public are worried about climate change and consider it personally important. We want to hear more from the public. That is why, on Monday of this week, we launched a public consultation to support the next update to the climate action plan, CAP. The consultation portal is open on the Department’s website and will remain open until mid-August. The comprehensive report of this committee on barriers to implementation has been factored into our considerations, and we have sought the views of the public on the committee’s work on our consultation portal. I would urge the committee to engage with this process, and today’s meeting provides us with an opportunity to hear directly from it on what should be addressed in the next update to the climate action plan.

The Minister has been clear as to his intentions with respect to the next update to the climate action plan. He wants it to be a more strategic and delivery-focused document, setting out high-level, multi-annual actions to concentrate efforts on implementation, as opposed to annual plan-making. This approach is in line with feedback from stakeholders, including the EPA and the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, which have pointed to the need for accelerated implementation of existing plans. The finalisation of the next update to the plan was delayed due to the ongoing carbon budget programme process, which was itself delayed due to Government and then committee formation following the last election. In addition, the publication of a number of reports on progress and barriers to implementation, as well as the EPA’s work on its greenhouse gas projections, has given us more to consider in the interim and has required detailed analysis across government.

The climate action plans 2024 and 2025 continue to be implemented, including a significant number of multi-annual actions through the work of the various task forces that have been established. For example, we have new retrofit and EV measures. I also want to assure the committee that, as a process that requires an annual update, my Department is continually engaged with work relating to the climate action plan. It is not a start-stop process, but rather one of continual engagement, analysis, evidence-gathering, drafting and production. In formulating the next plan, the Government must carefully consider a wide range of factors to ensure the approach is ambitious, feasible, and sustainable. We must protect the long-term competitiveness of the economy, maintain the State’s attractiveness for investment and maximise employment opportunities for our citizens while ensuring a just transition that supports communities right across the country.

The Minister has been clear that his focus is on delivery. He now chairs the climate action delivery board, CADB, which is made up of Secretaries General of all relevant Departments. The CADB works closely with the newly established climate action plan programme board, which is made up of assistant secretary delivery taskforce chairs and climate unit assistant secretaries from across the Government. This is chaired by Mr. Barry Quinlan. These groups have a vital role to play in shaping the next CAP and have been working hard to identify our highest impact measures and accelerate progress in reducing our emissions.

In conclusion, it is essential that we maintain the public’s trust by continuing to take the tangible climate action that the Irish people want and expect us to take. We have made good progress, which I highlighted earlier, but we know the task ahead is becoming more challenging. The next CAP will acknowledge that challenge while also laying out a series of ambitious and deliverable multi-annual actions, emphasising a focus on adaptation, resilience, affordability, energy security and competitiveness as we continue our vital journey to climate neutrality.

I again thank the committee for the invitation. I look forward to the questions from committee members.

I thank Ms Buckley for the presentation. The EPA report stated that an overall saving of 25% is still possible, but that is half of the 51% target. I want to ask about the IFAC and CCAC report from last year, which referred to a colossal missed opportunity and mentioned the potential for up to €28 billion in fines if we miss our targets. The Minister recently said that we “may” not face any fines or “may” face lesser fines. Scotland “may” win the World Cup. Does the Department have any up-to-date projections as to whether there will or will not be fines, or what the extent of the fines could be if we continue on the current trajectory?

There was a great deal of concern when those figures were produced. I was recently before the Committee of Public Accounts, where I explained that we do not necessarily subscribe to those figures. First, these are not fines. There are flexibilities built into the European climate system, which, if they are available, would allow any EU member state to purchase compliance by buying credits from other member states. It is under a number of different directives that the system arises.

Does the Department have any up-to-date calculations as to what the cost might be?

We do not. The reason we do not is that there are too many uncertainties about the system.

When will the Department know or have a better idea?

We will have a very clear idea in the early 2030s.

Not until then.

Not until then. Until then, we will not know to what extent we have met our own targets, to what extent other member states have met their targets and, therefore, to what extent the EU has met its target. It is an EU target, not a national one. It is just broken down to the national level. We will not know how many credits are available or how much they will cost.

I want to ask about just transition. There was a recent report about the green divide or wealth transfer, as some people have called it, with regard to retrofitting and EVs. I know there is a recent pilot project of €10 million for EV supports, which I anticipate will be sold out very quickly, given the uptake there has been. It is also reported that 45% of middle-class homes have solar panels, whereas only 9% of working-class homes have them. Are there plans to restructure that and make it more accessible with regard to EVs and solar for rural and working-class homes, targeting lower-income families? Will there be a pilot project with more targeted measures? Why is more money not being allocated towards this pilot project?

What about the second-hand market? All of this money is filtered through car dealerships anyway. There is the potential to identify who is a first-time buyer, even with a second-hand EV scheme. As Ms Buckley knows, one third of the money that was allocated in the previous scheme was for cars that cost €55,000 or more, so a lot of money was going to people who could already afford it.

First, we were very happy to get an application to the Climate Action Fund to support the Department of Transport in the roll-out of EVs and this pilot scheme, which it suggested to us to support, and to have this breakdown of rural and urban dwellers. We are also supporting the roll-out of the ZEVI charging system. One of the big issues for rural adoption is the need to have decent car charging. I was delighted to hear Deputy Michael Collins this morning in the Dáil praise the EV chargers behind his local supermarket in west Cork. I am delighted to know that even rural TDs are starting to adopt EVs. It is great to hear. They are great chargers, and I have used them myself.

We will continue to support our colleagues in the Department of Transport. One of the big things that we need to think about in terms of the more effective delivery of climate measures is to be more flexible and targeted about the use of our funding of this from things like the Climate Action Fund.

Does the Department have any plans to expand it to second-hand EVs, for example?

We would be basing that on a request from the Department of Transport. We would not have any particular issue. I understand the issue might be the fact that a car dealership has to sit in the middle, and it is the car dealers who apply for the grant. That might be the issue. If the Department of Transport can work through a programme that allows it to deal with whatever its issue is, and if we can support it, we will.

The Department is not saying “No”.

We are not saying “No”. Absolutely not. The Deputy referred to the urban-rural divide more specifically with regard to residential retrofit. There are two things to think about.

Rural and financial.

Rural and financial. First, we are extremely concerned about it because we need to make sure that everybody benefits from the move towards retrofitted homes. We spent a huge amount of money on the warmer homes schemes, which is the free scheme that is very important to deliver for people on lower incomes.

We are also very concerned because people in rural areas often live in poorer quality homes. Many of them rely on home heating oil, which, we all now realise, is also called kerosene and aviation fuel. That is something that we are giving very strong consideration to as part of the national energy affordability task force work, which the Minister has tasked us with. We have already seen in wearing his transport hat, the Minister has taken a rural-urban focus on that. I expect something similar to occur when we produce the reports on foot of the task force's work. I cannot pre-empt what decisions will be taken because some of that obviously relates to the budget. We are certainly trying to examine how best we can support all members of the community, in both urban and rural areas.

Up to now, there has been a focus on trying to maximise the number of people who adopted things. Obviously, we want to help people who have their own money and who can afford to do it. We want to bring them along, but there might need to be some consideration as to whether that is the appropriate approach going forward or whether we need to rebalance matters in order to ensure that everybody can be brought along on the retrofitting journey. We want all of our parents and grandparents to be living in warm homes. That is an important part of this. That is the benefit of retrofitting; it is as much about making sure that people are comfortable in their own homes over time as anything else. In some respects, the climate benefits are almost a happy byproduct of that retrofitting approach.

I call Deputy Cronin.

I thank the witnesses very much for attending. Ms Buckley mentioned the public consultation for the next climate action plan and the portal. Is that going to be the only means of consultation? Ordinary people worry that if they have to make submissions, the process will be complicated. Is there going to be any consultation with schools? We are at a critical juncture now in the area of climate action. There is a very negative narrative around it. Those involved in spreading that narrative have been emboldened. We have to make sure that we hear from plenty of young voices. Is the Department going to go through local authorities, Tidy Towns groups, which has done great work, and schools?

I might ask my colleague Mr. O'Neill, who is leading that process, to answer the Deputy's question.

The public consultation portal is just one avenue of consultation. We are engaging in a series of consultations with stakeholders, such as the Just Transition Commission and the Climate Change Advisory Council. We are open to consulting with any stakeholder group. The Deputy mentioned schools. The green schools network is probably a good avenue for that. We would open to consulting directly with any stakeholder-----

The Department is open to it. Is it actively doing it?

We are drawing up a list of stakeholders to engage with over the course of public consultation period. That has just commenced-----

Great. For anyone watching, even a sentence or a paragraph would be great in order to let the Department's intent known and encourage people to engage with the consultation process.

Reference was made to offshore wind projects that are in the pipeline. We are still losing around 11% of our wind energy because the grid cannot handle it all. Are there any plans for a dispatch down action plan to minimise the amount of energy that is wasted?

Essentially, that is the grid investment plan that the Government has approved. I have said publicly that I think that the decision the Government took last year to approve the price review, PR, 6 investment of the €18.9 billion and the related investment as part of the NDP of the equity injection into ESB Networks and EirGrid is probably the single most important decision that it will take during my time as Secretary General. The grid is fundamental to everything that we need to do to decarbonise our economy. The way in which we are planning to do this - as is every other country in Europe and, hopefully, around the world - is to decarbonise the electricity system and then electrify everything possible. You electrify all houses, all transport and all businesses in so far as is possible. There are some areas that are hard to decarbonise.

In order to do that and to have power going into the 100,000 homes being built every couple of years and to have the power to invest in our businesses, we have to have the wires. We have to get the power from the generation source - the renewable source - to where it needs to go. The investment, therefore, that is necessary in our grid is absolutely critical. The other thing that will do is reinforce our grid - as Storm Eówyn showed, we are facing into a huge adaptation challenge - and help us with those unnecessary costs in the system in the context of dispatch down where we have too much available power, whether it is through wind or solar, that we cannot get to where it is needed. What will also be needed is a huge investment in battery energy storage systems. We need to do a lot more behind the meter battery integration with solar panels. The has recently produced a document which will allow for the initial stages of that whereby renewable energy and battery systems can go behind their metered connections. However, we need to do more of that, we need to do it faster and we need to have a lot more long storage capacity in the system.

Great. Last year, the Government expressed concern around our grid capacity and said that it was going to have to choose between AI and housing. The UN recently mentioned, as a cautionary tale, that we have too many data centres and are not able to keep up with the demand for energy as a result. We are not even running to stand still; we are going backwards. Does the Department have any concerns about this? Has it factored in the huge growth in the number of data centres? That number is expected to increase by another 30% by 2030 and will be using 30% of our energy. We have already seen where substations that were planned for housing have been taken over by data centres because it is a case of first come first served.

It would be fair to say that at the beginning of last year, before a huge amount of work was done by my colleagues and by colleagues across other Departments, I would have probably shared those concerns. However, since then, the Government has approved a €19 billion investment in the grid. That is to enable houses, businesses and necessary digital investments to be facilitated. We have brought the large energy user action plan, LEAP, that was jointly worked on between my colleagues and colleagues in the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. That is a plan to best use our grid. In other words, it is a plan-led system. Instead of allowing developers decide where they want to put their data centres, they must now follow the rules of being co-positioned with energy sources. This means that we make best use of what is a limited resource, namely the grid.

The energy regulator has produced a large energy user policy. Unfortunately, it is the subject of a judicial review. In the meantime, it has had a significant impact in terms of enabling more renewable generation be brought onto the grid. In effect, data centres and renewable energy are now intertwined because in order to get a grid connection for a data centre, it will be necessary to bring forward a huge amount of additional renewable energy. It is very supportive of our renewable energy targets-----

ICTU was with us a few months ago. It indicated that there are only so many workers available and that many of them are involved in the building of new data centres at a time when we need houses. That is an issue.

I call Deputy Whitmore.

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I want to follow up on that matter. The point that the Department made last year in relation to making a decision, namely that choices were going to have to be made between housing and data centre demand, was a really useful contribution to the debate. Up until that point, there had been very little conversation from some quarters about the downsides of data centres. I refer in particular to their energy-intensive nature. Their need in that regard has impacts on infrastructure. That was a very useful contribution to the debate. Ms Buckley just stated that many other conditions and measures have been put in place and that she now feels that this is not as much of an issue. When she talks about the €18.9 billion investment that has been given to the ESB, that is to shore up our grid for the existing data centres. It is not for any additional demand or any new data centres that will come under the LEAP policy. That is just to deal with the existing centres.

I apologise. That is not correct. The existing data centres are being fed by the current grid. The investments in the grid are to service our economy into the 2030s. It is for future data centres.

The documentation states that it relates to existing capacity that had been contracted. The only reason the grid is still standing is because the previous Government had to spend millions to get extra gas generators in to meet the demand from data centres.

That is generation, which is one part of the system. The grid is a separate part of the system. Generation is the power and grid is how you transmit the power around the system.

Yes, but if the PR6 has stated-----

I am sorry, could I just-----

I have not had a chance to finish my question.

The Deputy can go ahead and finish her question.

When I had a look at the PR6 it said it was for existing contracted demand. Does Ms Buckley believe the €19 billion investment in the grid is going to be able to facilitate not just existing demand but also the 5.8 GW of extra demand that could potentially be coming down the line under the large energy user action plan, LEAP?

First of all, those projects that are going to be funded under the PR6 are incredibly important for the economy and society that we want in Ireland in the 2030s. It will be incredibly important to make sure that we can turn lights on in new homes, that we can create new jobs and to underpin the digital economy, which is what we have in this country. We do not have large industrial users; we have a digital economy here.

Those grid investments are really the first of what will probably be a sequence of very large investments over the coming price review sequences, which come every five years. I would expect there to be a very large need for investment in the 2030s and possibly into the early 2040s as well. That is true of all European countries.

Our grid system and generation capacity have kept pace with an increase in demand of 3% a year, which is very unusual in Europe. Electricity demand has gone up by 50% in the past decade and we have kept pace with that. We will be able to keep pace but we will have to an awful lot of work to get there.

And at huge cost. This has been expensive for the State. What we have at the moment is a situation where there is a real emphasis on households. While it is very important that households become energy resilient, to me it seems that Government policy is very much directed towards ensuring that households make that transition and not every household is going to be financially supported to make the transition. The reason that households are doing that is because investment from the State is going to shore up the grid. That is evident even in our legislative system. I refer to the fact is that we are going to have private wires, which could potentially bring in an alternative, independent grid system for data centres to operate. It seems like every single section of society or the Government's policy is very much focused on data centres and their growth. I recognise that they are necessary. The question for me is how many are necessary. Ms Buckley says that compared with Europe, we are doing well. The average electricity consumption in Europe for data centres is approximately 3%. We could be hitting 55% if the LEAP policy goes ahead. Some 55% of our electricity could potentially be for data centres.

I have a real fear about the social cohesion element of this, if we have a large number of people in society who are being left behind because they cannot keep up with the energy transition. I raised this in the Dáil earlier. They are being hit by higher energy costs and all they see are the large corporates being facilitated to use more and more energy while they themselves are not able to pay their electricity bills. I have a huge problem with that and a huge concern about the social cohesion element of that.

When it comes to wind energy, I believe that renewable energy should be going in the first instance to ensure that homes and small businesses can become fossil-fuel independent. That is not happening. The new renewable energy that is coming on stream is going to the data centre demand. At the moment, I think we have been incredibly lucky with the acceptance by the public that we need wind farms, including offshore wind farms. In my county a huge number of wind farms will be located off the coast. Unusually, there has been general acceptance that they are required. If it turns out that those wind farms are being primarily used to keep data centres going while people are still struggling to pay electricity bills in their homes, that is going to cause huge problems.

Does Deputy Whitmore want a comment on that?

Yes.

There is a couple of things. First, there is a big focus in our Department on the just transition. That is part of us trying to address people's energy bills by paying for solar panels, retrofitting and things like that. We are very conscious of the fact that we need to bring all of society along on this journey.

With regard to the renewable energy projects, when renewable energy comes on to the grid, an electron does not go in a particular direction. It is electricity that goes onto the grid. It is our job in the Department of energy, working with our subsidiary bodies, to make sure that there is enough energy that is decarbonised for everybody at an affordable price. We need to provide a secure, affordable and decarbonised energy system. It is important to say that in some ways having large industrial users like data centres paying renewable energy developers and giving them a guaranteed energy stream to bring that on means that we can achieve that in ways that reduce the cost to everybody else. It is important not to lose sight of that. Those big corporate payment projects, for example, can help, which we do allow to happen outside of the State auctions, bring those projects on board that will allow us deliver the system overall. Ultimately, at this point we have seen, most unusually, growth of 3% of electricity use in Ireland over the past decade. We have 50% more. That is because we have 1 million extra people and we are electrifying houses and cars. Our electricity use is going up everywhere and we need to plan to meet that use. That is what our job is and that is what we intend to do.

I thank Ms Buckley.

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I met Ms Buckley in a previous life when she was the head of the WRC and I was an employment solicitor. It is nice to see her again.

I thank Deputy Ahern very much. It feels like many jobs ago.

It was a little bit of time ago. Regarding the climate action plan, we heard that the public consultation is being launched this week. The Minister has been speaking for a long time about how this is going to be a high-impact action plan. The consultation that is opening now will be open until 17 August. Why now and not earlier in the year? If you were cynical you might say the Government was playing for time a little bit. When can we expect to see this year's climate action plan?

I thank the Deputy for the question. I expect that we will see it early after the summer recess. The draft climate action plan will be ready then and we are going to try to turn it around as quickly as we can, subject to summer holidays and all of that.

It has been a bit delayed but if the Deputy likes I can explain the purpose of that. Basically, what happened is that we were caught in a bit of bind. There is a carbon budget requirement under the climate Act and the carbon budget proposal landed just after the election. Then the Oireachtas committee was not formed so we were unable to submit the carbon budget. I know we got a great report from the committee in autumn of last year, which required us to give very careful consideration because it disagreed with one of the fundamental proposals from the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, about how to manage carbon budgets. We have had to liaise with the CCAC on that.

The second reason for this is that there has been quite a bit of disquiet across government and within the senior Civil Service world that we were producing annual plans with 400 pages at a time, and we were doing quarterly reports on the annual plans, yet our own agencies were telling us we were not getting any closer to meeting our carbon targets for 2030. With the Government's and the Minister's focus on delivery, we have had a real rethink about how we will produce climate action plans. I should also say as well that we have had a series of judicial reviews of our climate action approach. There was a court decision earlier this year, which we were also waiting to see. It was a bit of a perfect storm that caused the delay, but also it has given us the opportunity to rethink how we go about this and to try to reorient public servants from writing plans and reporting on them to actually delivering on the climate action agenda. That is very much the focus of what we are doing. In the meantime, we have re-established the Government's arrangements to give greater oomph and strength to monitoring that. If I can put it that way, it has not been a waste of time.

We know we need to proceed and do a climate action plan but it will be a much more multi-annual affair, much shorter and much more high impact, in our view.

Rejigging governance arrangements has been mentioned. I understand that in the previous Government there was a clearing house in the Department of the Taoiseach that would have dealt with these kinds of things. What are the new governance arrangements? How will it be ensured that we get more bang for our buck this time? Presumably, there is cross-departmental support for the actions.

The first aspect is that we reconstituted the delivery board, as it was called. It is now led by a Minister, whereas previously it was led by me and my counterpart in the Department of the Taoiseach. We were trying to persuade our counterparts across Government to do things. It is better when a Minister does it because we live in that sort of Civil Service environment. We now have an assistant secretary-led group with a much more focused premise on delivery on the ground. We have introduced new strands so, for example, a great deal of attention was not paid adaptation. This was of great concern to the Taoiseach and me, particularly when the day after the Government was formed Storm Éowyn hit. That put a real adaptation lens on what we needed to do. Mr. Quinlan has been working on trying to make sure that we adopt a much more thematic and structured approach. He might want to talk a bit about this.

Starting off with the programme board, electricity was the first deep dive we did. We got the task force chair to talk about the barriers. A lot of these were identified by the Deputy. We had a discussion with the programme board about how we can close the gap to 2030 and then build a trajectory to 2040. Some items that were holding things up came out of that discussion. They went on to the delivery board, which is made up of Secretaries General and Ministers, so it is very high level. That went on, in a matter of weeks, to the Cabinet committee and the actions that will come out of that are still in train. Some of them are being done at the moment or they will end up in CAP 2026. The next sector we will look at is transport and the one after that will be agriculture.

As the committee knows, emissions in Ireland are heavily focused towards agriculture, transport and buildings. If we going to make a dent in this then those are the big areas we need to be delivering on.

When we did our report on the carbon budgets, as I recall, one of the queries we had was the Paris test versus the temperature neutrality test.

You are bringing back bad memories here.

I know. Correct me if I am wrong, Chair, but I am not sure we ever got any feedback on that.

I do not think so.

I would be interested to understand the Department's position on that now.

Is that the bit that caused the challenge?

Yes, the temperature neutrality. I want to say that I am a lawyer and a civil servant so I find this particular concept completely head wrecking. I have had it explained to me multiple times. We have had to go back and forth with the CCAC to look at that question. We understand why it approached the question as it did. We know there was some discontent within the CCAC as well and subsequent correspondence from academics about it. One of the things we have to give consideration to is the fact that other countries may have adopted this different test but they are not in the European Union. We are bound by European Union law so that has been a question that we have had to give some consideration to. Do not get me wrong; we still have a carbon budget. We are covered by this to 2030 but it is fair to say that we have not yet come to a conclusion on that point.

I want to pick up on the data centre piece first and where we are going as a country with AI and technology and the emphasis on employment and the need for it. We are currently in a position regarding energy where we do not have our independence. We do not necessarily have security and we are relying on imports. If we do not have the capacity for data centres in this country, what happens? Do the jobs not come or do we import the capabilities to process that data?

I am the Secretary General of a bit of Government. I am not setting AI policy or whatever.

I just want to focus on data centres.

My job and that of the agencies working to me is to make sure we can provide enough power in the right places to power our economy and society. That fundamentally should be our bottom line and so far we have kept up with that. The weaknesses in the approach was making it not a plan-led system but a developer-led system, if I can put it that way. Developers were finding the places where there was capacity on the grid and building their data centres there. Even a small data centre is a bit like adding a town the size of Kilkenny or Wexford to the grid overnight. They do ramp up but the demand that is there is a bit like adding a town or even a city for one of the big ones. There was only so much slack in the system and that slack was caught up on. This has meant that our grid developers, energy generators and the Department as policymaker have had to work together to try to evolve a new policy in that space. This is one which allows us to plan for this development in a way the energy system can cope with. However, the quid pro quo is that as energy providers and grid builders we need to be providing the energy and building the grid to enable that development to take place. That is the deal now and to do that we need a plan-led approach because that allows the energy system to cope with data centres and digitalisation.

It is not our job to limit Government policy on things like AI and digitalisation. In fact, these two are probably critically important to running an effective grid in the future. It is really important for us to manage to do this in lockstep with our colleagues from the Department of enterprise, who are bringing in this investment and that we are able to manage those demands on the grid. The result of that has been the large energy user action plan, LEAP.

It is not an either-or situation regarding housing or data centres. Is that correct?

No, as long as we put the investments into the grid, which is the point. Deputy Whitmore has reminded me of a very embarrassing episode where I was on the front page of the newspaper, which no civil servant likes. The comments I was making in that article is that we need investment in the system if we are to enable these things to happen in our society. We have now seen the decisions on investment in the system.

I previously raised with Department officials the issue of the HVO rate in relation to home heating oil. The blend being arrived at is from about 1.5% to 3%. The sector is claiming that it could go as far as 20%. Is 3% the optimal position? If we start that low will we get the buy-in from the sector in the early days of this transition in order to try to reduce emissions?

I will have to think back to my Committee of Public Accounts briefing, which was a few weeks ago. We are reasonably happy with that approach but more generally, we need to aim to take people off home heating oil. The recent events in the Middle East have shown that Europe has a structural insufficiency in kerosene, which is what we call home heating oil. This is also aviation fuel and it is now an expensive way to heat a home. If I were to be honest - which I probably should not be in a committee - it is the one I am quite worried about for the coming winter, in terms of people who are reliant on kerosene to heat their homes. We hope that the recent deal in the Middle East will stick but we need to be trying to move people as quickly as we can off oil as a heating solution and on to other, better solutions.

I worked on HVO previously. A lot of that came from the heat study done by the SEAI, which looked at the way we heat our society today and what we need into the future. A lot of those numbers came from that process. HVO was seen as very important for transport and a smaller segment for heating. I know that this is a constant debate. It is updated as time goes on and it depends which lens it is looked at through. I have heard that from the industry. One of the things we are trying to do is grow indigenous industry, so it is kept under review but a lot of it came from that initial, mammoth national heat study by the SEAI.

In terms of supply chain, in relation to this whole area and the scarcity of HVO as such, is there opportunity for some sort of indigenous renewable fuel production on the island?

We are planning to introduce a heat Bill in the coming weeks which will include a renewable heat obligation. That is to encourage a biomethane industry which allows for diversification at farm level, which will be a really important thing for agriculture going forward. The Deputy may be aware that we had been proposing a multiplier and had notified that to the European Commission, which has come back and said the multiplier will not work in a European Common Market context. We are giving some further thought as to how we can support the nascent biomethane industry. I have received substantial funding as part of my NDP allocation as well for the next few years to help in the grant aid biomethane space. It is going to be really important in the agricultural sector for its diversification needs as part of climate change and climate mitigation.

I have a few questions, starting with biomethane. Do you see a long-term, sustainable future for biomethane in the Irish energy system?

We absolutely do. We are very keen to deliver a very substantial amount of biomethane. Indeed, Gas Networks Ireland sees a huge role for biomethane as part of decarbonising its system going forward, what will be needed of gas going forward. It has been attempted in Ireland before and it has not got off the ground but we think there is enough momentum now in the industry. It was unfortunate about the multiplier but we will have a look to see if there are other supports we can do. It is key and really important to state here that the Minister, the Government and our Department are very committed to developing a biomethane industry, as is the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, because they see it as critical to decarbonisation of their own sector.

That is good to hear. Home kerosene was mentioned and it is a real issue. There are 750,000 homes, give or take, with no obvious path away from it. What is the Department's view as to the solution for home kerosene for those 750,000?

I do not want to worry people. We do not think there is going to be any shortage of kerosene.

From a decarbonisation perspective.

Just going into the next winter, we do think there could well be a price effect from the geopolitical events that Ireland obviously cannot control. As part of the national energy affordability task force, we are looking to whether there are things that can be done in the short to medium term to reduce people's reliance on kerosene as a heating fuel. One of the things we are constrained by is that under European law, we cannot give people a grant to invest in a gas boiler. That is a constraint on us and is a requirement of European law. We think there might be ways to move to better equipped homes in particular to an electrical solution reasonably fast. Then we will start to look at our other retrofit measures. I do not want to pre-empt what comes out of the task force. The Minister would not thank me for stealing his thunder for his announcements. We think that some focus on those more vulnerable groups who are using heating oil as a fuel will be needed.

Okay, so there is not really any clarity yet.

I cannot give you any clarity. Decisions have not been taken yet.

On the climate action plan, from my side it looks a bit pedestrian. We are here in the middle of 2026 and it has just gone out to public consultation. That looks pedestrian in the context of 2030 and the importance of decarbonisation. Let us have some clarity. Are we going to be back here in six months talking about 2027? Is the Secretary General saying we should recast that plan, that is, it should not be a 2026 plan but maybe a three-year plan or a shorter plan? We have heard about 400-page documents and quarterly reviews. It all sounds incredibly administrative yet pedestrian in nature, based on what we have seen so far. What are we saying about 2027? Is the Department really going to issue a plan for 2026 in the autumn of 2026, with the year nearly over, and then look again at 2027? Let us be realistic. What are we talking about?

It is a very valid point. My concern since I took up this job has consistently been that I had a team of people who were basically spending their time writing reports and reporting on reports. They were not really focused at all on delivery. There was an equal but opposite team in the Department of the Taoiseach doing the same thing, all on spreadsheets. It was so bureaucratic even the bureaucrats hated it. We need to focus on a more multi-annual, more impactful approach. The Minister very much wants that as well. We currently have a climate action plan, which is the one from last year. They all layer on each other. We are still working away on everything we need to deliver under that. I think the approach going forward has to be a much more multi-annual approach, possibly then with an annual update or review on whether we have done - it might even be a five-year one. It definitely should not be shorter. A year is a blink of an eye. I would think that a much more effective approach, and the Minister accepts it, is a much more multi-annual approach where we are not constantly trying to think of new but rather bitty things to say we have delivered on all our actions. Some of the actions in some of the previous climate action plans - I am not criticising anybody as that is what we were given by other Government Departments - but they were about producing this report, and this task force will report. It is what civil servants are really good at, producing reports. What we need to do is move on, for example, to get the hundreds of thousands of EVs out on the road that we need to deliver on the transport sectoral emissions ceiling. Are we going to reduce the amount of fertiliser going into farms to achieve the SEC commitment on agriculture? It is those big things that we need to work on.

Yes. This committee would be very interested in hearing about it, if you are going to recast the approach and build in bigger items and more urgency. This committee would be supportive of that. I am saying that as Cathaoirleach. Others may have different views but it sounds like it will inject practicality and urgency into the process, which would be very welcome.

By the way, I should say that if the committee or any member of the committee has any suggestions to make to us on this approach, we would be delighted to receive them.

Thank you.

On affordability and the transition, from what I have seen, affordability has been the poor relation of the assessment of just transition thus far. There have been methodologies in the past based on marginal cost abatement and things like that, which take affordability into the process. The Secretary General speaks about the task force but this is really about a lot more than that. It is about the long term. Is affordability now coming into the equation finally, not just for businesses but for consumers as well? There are charges to do with price review 6, PR6 spread across all the elements of the sector but affordability has to become a factor. How is it becoming a factor in terms of the transition?

It is a very good question. There is classic trilemma of the electrification debate, of whether we can have a system that is secure, affordable and decarbonised. It is a real challenge to achieve all three, which is the task we have been set by Government. When the Minister arrived, we had all these task forces on delivering onshore and offshore wind and so on. The Minister asked if we had a task force on delivering affordable energy and we did not. We established it last year. The events of the past few months have really put much greater focus on the work that needs to come out of that. It was one of the first things the Minister established, and he chairs it himself.

I will stop the Secretary General there as I have other questions. We should not need a task force for that. From my perspective, it should be built into the core of the Department long term. Affordability and security are so important for consumers and businesses. It should be in the ethos of the Department in the long term.

We used to have a section that dealt with energy poverty but not that broader ethos of affordability, so that is what has changed in the past 18 months.

Just to add to that, the programme board, which is made up of the heads of the various task forces, is looking at accelerating future and existing measures, through a lens which is really about feasibility, asking whether these things can actually work.

Affordability is a huge element of that, as is competitiveness for our businesses. There are also the issues of transport and access. It is through this lens that we are looking at measures. We are not going to bring anything forward that we do not think can tick those boxes. Then it will be about trying to drive to a greater extent the ones that can tick those boxes. The mindset of the programme board is about whether we need to change measures to be able to do this.

I want to come in on the question of the prioritisation of electricity, which is one of the keys if we want to meet our targets. We have heard again and again that there is an issue with first come, first served. At a different committee, I have heard testimony about electric buses in Phibsborough that cannot move into operation, as they are delayed in accessing electrification because the grid is stretched. Is there a plan? We have also heard in the past that the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, is limited in how it operates, whether section 15 applies to it and whether it can apply proper conditionalities in terms of the type of energy usage. I am concerned about data centres. Will there be a plan for prioritisation, with the just transition and the public need for decarbonisation as a priority and large energy users' commercial needs for energy coming further down the list as the electricity becomes available?

I am very concerned about the framing that we need large energy users to do the renewable transition. There are a dozen countries ahead of us in Europe on the renewables transition and they have 3% data centres. We seem to be the only country that states we cannot do a renewable transition without this big boss customer in the room. I do not understand why that is. It seems to be a wild attachment of what needs to be done, which is renewables, to what the Government is actually pushing, which is a large energy user data centre policy. It sounds like when we will have private wires that much of the renewable capacity will not be under a public service obligation. Some of the new renewable capacity will not add into the grid but will go directly to these large energy users. The prioritisation policy has been spoken about forever but there does not seem to be a plan for one. There does not seem to be an ambition or a backup plan for the Government regarding what driving renewable energy would look like if we were not attaching it to large energy users, as is the case in every other country in Europe.

Agriculture was mentioned. Will the land use report be published? We need to see it if we are to properly dive into the issue of agricultural emissions.

I will answer the last question first because it is quite easy. We have the memo ready to go. The problem has been getting the two relevant Ministers' diaries aligned so that they are both at the Cabinet. We think we have a date when they will both be available by the end of the month and we hope to publish the land use review phase 2 at that juncture.

I am not 100% sure what question I was being asked-----

Is there a plan for a prioritisation?

The answer to that is "No". At present, the Government has no proposal to draft things that exist in other EU member states where they have run out of grid capacity, the Netherlands being a prime case in point. It has had to put in place a priority connection list that starts with hospitals. The reason we have not deemed it necessary is because, so far, we have kept up with all of the demands on the grid.

I have just given the example of electric buses that are not on stream.

I cannot speak on a specific problem at a specific site. It might be that there are technical difficulties or building difficulties. I do not know.

We heard testimony again and again from experts about the grid. I am not asking whether the Department will do all of the things eventually; it is not a question about the moratorium, which is a valid question, but about prioritisation. If decarbonisation of transport is a priority and there is a data centre that wants to go into an area from Amazon Web Services, which is going to be the priority? Is it not appropriate, if we are really trying to get things done, that we have prioritisation?

Decisions taken by the Government over the past year include huge investments into the grid and into equity in the two businesses delivering the grid, the large energy user action plan, which is a plan to focus where future data centres can build approximate to delivered grid and generation, and the large energy users decision from the CRU, which is intended to bring extra renewable energy onto the grid. Senator Higgins said at some point that we were behind other countries in delivering renewable energy. Actually, Ireland is one of the best in the world at integrating renewable energy onto its grid. We are the co-leader in Europe in having onshore wind. We are really far ahead of other countries. We do not congratulate ourselves enough. Ireland is really far ahead on renewable energy.

But it is being entirely absorbed by large energy users.

That is not correct.

In terms of the increase, it is. We have had a greater increase in use. Frankly, I think Ireland has spent a long time congratulating itself on finally planning to do climate action, having been way behind the rest of Europe. It is like starting the race late and congratulating ourselves for it. We congratulate ourselves an awful lot and we have not actually delivered. We are way behind on where we need to be. We do not have room, especially in a global context, for this. I want to know how we will decarbonise. Is there a new plan for the just transition? This is not just about language and consideration but a new plan for the just transition. What would delivering renewables look like without, like other countries, relying on large energy users and scaling this up for decarbonisation? What if resources were being poured into this through public renewable energy generation? Are these options being looked at? That is what has happened in other countries.

Every year, we run an onshore renewable energy auction, which is the use of public money and the public service obligation to deliver gigawatts of renewable energy every year. At present, we have 8 GW of renewable energy generation on our system, all onshore, and our peak winter demand is 6 GW. In fact, we have 25% more renewable energy generation capacity in this country than we actually use at peak. Our fastest growing area of renewable energy is solar. We have gone from 2 MW of solar energy ten years ago to 2.5 GW today and we are looking to be at more than 3 GW by the end of the year. Renewable energy is coming on the system through the public service obligation and we also allow for corporate purchase obligations. We are one of the countries that is furthest ahead in Europe in allowing both of these systems. Other European countries are coming after us, in fact.

I will ask Mr. Quinlan to speak in detail about the just transition. We have a very well-established and ably led committee, which is working on just transition principles to be integrated into all decision-making across the Government.

The independent commission on just transition led by Ms Ali Sheridan has produced a couple of reports. These reports have been integrated into the programme board and then onto the delivery board. A lot of this is about the integration of the just transition into everything, including every decision made. We know that the transition does not affect everybody equally and the commission has made a budget submission in which this point was made. When I met the chair of the just transition commission, I agreed that its work would be integrated. Mr. O'Neill has met Ms Sheridan on the key elements. It has already been referenced in climate action plans and I see it as a central theme. It speaks to the issues of affordability and competitiveness, which are lenses through which we have to look at these measures.

I will quickly follow on from that. Can Ms Buckley understand how difficult it is for people to hear the congratulations around renewables, how well we are doing compared to other countries and that we have brought so much more onto the grid when, at the same time, we have the highest electricity prices in Europe? Over 300,000 people have been in arrears with their electricity bills for nine months. Can she understand how difficult it is for people to hear us talking about affordability, a just transition and all of these renewables when they are not experiencing it in their homes? That has to be at the forefront of everything the Department is doing but, from what I am hearing today, I do not think it is. I do not think there is a realisation that individual homes are not benefiting from this transition. It is the large corporates and large energy users that are benefiting and that is to the detriment of households, which are paying to keep those large corporations and data centres going. I just wanted to make that point because I do not think it is engrained in everything the Government is doing when it should be at the forefront.

I have very little time so I will go back to the previous point, which related to investment. I completely agree that investing in the grid is one of the most important things we can do. It was said that PR6, the €19 billion investment by the ESB, was for future data centres. The PR6 documentation I have states that no new data centres were considered in the PR6 submission and that all new data centre connection applications will be assessed based on any future CRU direction. I have looked back and confirmed that with the CRU. That €19 billion is not for new data centres. It is not to allow for the 5.8 GW demand that could potentially arise under the new large energy user action plan, LEAP, rules. In light of the fact that any investment we have had to date is not going to be able to make our grid secure in the context of future data centre demand, is the Department concerned about the continued growth of data centres and the impact they could have on our grid?

That is almost certainly a sequencing issue. PR6 proposals were made by EirGrid and ESB Networks in the summer of last year. LEAP was only produced this spring. In this role, I have discovered that, when you set electrical engineers a target - you might tell them we need power for 300,000 additional houses in certain areas - they say "Okay", go away and plan a grid that meets those specifications. The Government has now decided to take an approach led by this LEAP. We are now working with our transmission system operator and distribution system operator to work out how they can service that Government policy and that enterprise demand that will come through. I am sorry if I misspoke. More generally, of the 520 development proposals under PR6, about 60 are absolutely key for the TSO and DSO, with 29 on the transmission side and 31 on the distribution side. Those investments are necessary to power homes and businesses, including data centres if the grid is capable. They are to reinforce and give greater resilience to our grid. They are to bring renewable energy onto the grid. They are for all of those things.

That is all really important but the question-----

They are to ensure the wire copes with all of those things.

If the Department's understanding is that PR6 and the investment that has been approved to date cannot be used for future data centres, does that raise concerns about this LEAP, under which 55% of our electricity demand could potentially come from data centres? The Government has not invested in this area because the investment being made under PR6 is for existing contracted data centre usage.

As I have said, our job is to make sure that we have enough energy and enough ways to transmit it around the country to meet the demands.

Is that possible if we do not have that investment in the grid?

We do have investment.

If we are going to expand-----

The Deputy has asked the question. Let us hear the answer.

Investment is being made in the grid.

It is not. That is the point. The investment is for existing data centres. This additional data centre demand is not accounted for under PR6. That investment has not been made. It may come in the future but surely we are putting the cart before the horse.

The Deputy has made her point. Let us get a response to that.

As I have said, this grid investment is critical for the thirties. We already have committed data centre demand that we know about up to 2030. That has been programmed in. There will be additional data centres coming onto our grid between now and 2030. We have consistently said that LEAP is a plan to take us into the 2030s. That will also involve the PR7 system. Investments being made under PR6 will help to deliver for additional demand into the 2030s. The Deputy is shaking her head at me but it will.

It does not cover demand from new data centres. It says that in the document.

A Eurostat report has identified network charges as being a significant factor in how high household energy bills are here. It seems that households pay six to eight times more in network charges than large energy users. Is there any way for the Government or the Department to address that in order to increase fairness in how network charges are paid by individual households?

I am a bit confused by this line of argument. Network charges for large energy users have gone up much more substantially than they have for individual households over the last few years. The figure I have in my head is 175% compared with 45%. That means that charges for households have still gone up by 45%. Network charges, as a proportion of bills-----

They are coming from a lower base.

Large energy users pay a very substantial amount in network charges. Unfortunately, I do not have the figures in front of me but they would pay seven-figure sums in network charges where individual households would pay a couple of hundred euro.

They are using one third of our energy capacity, however.

They are still paying a proportionately appropriate amount for their use of the grid and towards the construction of the grid.

Ms Buckley is saying they are paying a fair amount compared with a household.

The difference is that, where you use smaller amounts of energy, the per kilowatt hour charge is relatively higher. An individual house or small business obviously uses a lot less energy than-----

Of course, but they are paying proportionately more in network charges.

That is effectively the way the costs are socialised across the system. However, I should say that most of what is causing our high electricity costs is the hours where gas, which is costly at the moment, sets the price of the energy that we use.

It comes down to the international gas markets.

The more renewable energy we bring onto the system, the more time renewable energy, wind and solar, will set the price and the better Ireland will be insulated against geopolitical events and the cost of imported gas.

On renewables, I hope Ms Buckley will forgive me if this question was already asked when I stepped out. The programme for Government said that it would explore ways to help to reduce energy poverty. With EnergyCloud, surplus renewable energy can be put towards social housing to help end fuel poverty and energy curtailment. Since 2017, €340 million in renewable energy has been wasted. Is the Department going to address that in any way? It is going to encourage EnergyCloud?

As I have said, the way to address dispatch down charges is through investment in the grid. That means that, instead of telling solar farms or wind farms that they cannot give us electricity and that we will pay them instead, we will have an adequate grid connection and power can be moved from where it is generated to where it is needed. That is the key to delivering a reduction in dispatch down. The EnergyCloud proposal is interesting. We are certainly looking at it. It would need-----

Will it be in the climate action plan?

For that or anything similar to it to be done, we would need to have tariff structures that enable consumers to avail of energy when it is cheapest. CRU has introduced dynamic tariff structures in the last little while. We are working with the regulator as part of the national energy affordability task force to underpin those kinds of affairs so that we can enable customers. For example, customers will know that energy will be cheap between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. on a given night so they can set the clock on their water heater.

That is separate. Will there be anything in the climate action plan for EnergyCloud to fulfil the promise in the programme for Government?

It will not specifically reference EnergyCloud which is a specific NGO.

Or its proposals.

There will be consideration given to what EnergyCloud itself says it will need to scale which is the tariff reform and enabled consumer reform that is needed.

Deputy Ahern is next.

One of the frequent critiques we make of the Minister and the Government is that it seems to us that a lot of their policies are leading to additional greenhouse gases - additional reliance on oil and gas. Ms Buckley said she is not particularly concerned by its data centre policy but there are things like the Dublin Airport cap, the LNG terminal, and the disapplication of section 15 of the Climate Act from critical infrastructure projects. As the head of the Department of climate, does Ms Buckley think it is possible to square all these circles? Does she think it is possible for the Government to do everything it wants to do while reaching our legally binding climate targets? We know we are not going to reach them, and the Minister is trying to make a virtue out of that by admitting that we are not going to reach them, but does Ms Buckley think we are moving further away from that or are we making progress in any way? Are any of these actions by government bringing us closer?

Again, senior civil servants do not criticise Government policy if they want to keep their jobs.

I do not want to put Ms Buckley in an awkward situation.

To take the one I am most familiar with, the strategic gas reserve is in the climate action plan. It is a reserve that we use to make sure that between now and when we reach a net-zero approach on our energy system, which is from 2050, so if anything calamitous were to happen to our imported gas supply, we could keep the lights on in people’s homes. It is very much designed as something we can put in for the years that we need it; hopefully it is a kind of boat, it sails away and that is the end of it. Bear in mind, we only have a target of reaching 80% renewables on our grid. That does suggest there is a residual need for fossil fuels. There is going to be consideration and we are looking at proposing a power White Paper to look at how we get from here to 2050. There are big challenges to do that last mile - I do not want to underplay that - and a lot of countries are struggling with how they do that last bit in a way that is secure and, critically, that is affordable. We have been talking about the affordability challenge here today.

Sorry to cut in but it would seem that last mile is getting further and further away from us based on some of the policies that are coming through.

The thing to talk about is that the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland are, as I have said, first, agriculture; second, domestic transportation because we do not capture aviation in that and it is one of the hardest areas to decarbonise anyway; and third, our buildings. In looking at what we can do in Ireland to do our bit to mitigate climate change, it is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture to the greatest extent possible, which is consistent with things like food security, and then to decarbonise our electricity system and electrify travel and heating. If we focus on a few things like that and then a few other things like the circular economy, reducing our textile use, reducing our food waste and things like that, that is where the big bang for our buck lies in greenhouse gas reduction. There are other aspects like land use and land use change which are really complex and difficult to achieve and that every country is struggling with but those are the big ones. If someone was to ask me what they could do to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions on a personal level, the three things in order are: change how you move around the island; reduce the amount of food that you waste; change how you heat your home; and start reducing the amount of cheap clothing you buy from other countries. Those are the things that individuals can do. As long as we stick to focusing on what is appropriate to Ireland to deliver that, we can go a very long way to meeting our climate targets.

Is that an indication of what will be in the climate action plan? Is it those types of things?

Pretty much, yes.

I have one last question. Is the Department getting co-operation from other Departments in relation to its jobs? Ms Buckley said the land use report has not been launched yet because the Department cannot get the two Ministers together. That does not give the impression-----

That is just a scheduling problem. We have agreement with the two other Departments involved. It is a whole-of-government issue. It cannot all rest on the shoulders of the people here.

Of course.

There is a whole-of-Oireachtas and a whole-of-society need to change. I was out of central government for a while because of various jobs I did. I was astounded when I came into this role just how much climate mitigation, in particular, and climate adaptation more laterally has soared up the agenda of every Department. Everybody has it now as a core principle of what they need to achieve.

Could I ask for more money? Yes, sure. I could always do with more money. Could I ask for more staff or individual things? Sure but there are constraints on other Departments as well and we have to understand that. For example, I mentioned food security. Food security is a very big principle for the Department of agriculture - I understand it is important for it - but it has to balance what we are asking of it or what is being asked of it in terms of meeting its sectoral emissions ceiling with the challenges it has around its own industry and food security. There are lots of competing priorities in government, that is one of the big things, but I think climate action has become one of the most significant things. It is written through the programme for Government as well. That really does set the agenda for civil servants.

I call Senator Higgins.

I think the public is no longer asking “What can I do?” but it is asking “What will the Government do?” There is the electrification of transport, which Ms Buckley mentioned. When I asked about prioritisation, she said we do not need it but if that is one of the top two pieces, then surely the electrification of transport, particularly public transport, should be a priority? Much as the Department has its LEAP plan for large energy users, where is the plan for really accelerating the electrification of transport, including access and priority access to the grid and everything that makes it actually happen and taking it to scale because it still seems to be half in pilot-mode in places?

On land use, we have been waiting 18 months for this so the scheduling issue does not cover it. We have been waiting a long time. There is the question of changing the mandates by Bord na Móna and Coillte to deliver a climate role, which I would like to be touched on. They fall outside the section 15 obligation so they still have a commercial mandate even though from a land use perspective they play a crucial role. Is changing the mandates of those organisations so they can have an obligation on delivering on climate which empowers them to move past a commercial mandate on the cards? How is the contribution of other relevant section 15 bodies being scaled up? Right now there is a very worrying signal with the removal of section 15 obligations in terms of infrastructure, which is a mile in the wrong direction. I worry relevant bodies are looking at that and thinking the Government is not serious about section 15 and the obligation of all public bodies on that. Will Ms Buckley answer that?

Ms Buckley said that what drives up costs was whether it was renewables or fossil fuel that was used and that was what set the price but we have heard testimony from experts at this and other committees that it is because of data centres which have constant demand. They are running between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. at times when renewables would be meeting the demand and setting the price but because this constant demand is on the grid, fossil fuel is getting invoked. Therefore they are increasing the price for everybody. It is not just that they are getting a better deal on their per hour price but they are also increasing the price for everybody by making fossil fuels and back-up gas generation be what sets the marginal rate for everybody because they have a constant demand. Is there any move to press them on that and to change the hours on which they operate so that renewable cost benefits can start coming through to anybody?

Are we just telling people to run their washing machines at night? Are we going to tell the data centres to reduce their demand, for example, so that renewables could set the rate?

On the Bord na Móna-Coillte question, Bord na Móna has done the most amazing transformation of itself. It has moved out of burning peat and is now on track to becoming Ireland's largest renewable energy producer, if it is not already. It has a huge pipeline of proposals in line to deliver on that. The company will also be critical to the delivery of our grid ambitions because it has such a huge land bank, which stretches to all corners of the country from the border of Dublin, the whole way across the west and down to the south.

Bord na Móna is hamstrung on the non-profitable component, for example, rewetting, to a degree because it has a commercial mandate.

I was about to add that Bord na Móna would be critical to the rewetting mandate and had already delivered most of the rewetting of bogs that had been done in this country. Bord na Móna is a huge success story. It would be great for the committee to invite its representatives to come in and for members to talk to them about what has been delivered because we need to advertise that a bit more.

With its huge land bank Coillte will likewise be critical, in particular on the grid delivery side of things. Coillte does not directly report to me, so I do not know about more of its work. I can only imagine on the land use, land-use change and forestry, LULUCF, side that Coillte will do a lot. Recently, we have talked to Coillte about an inventive process and my colleague will discuss that.

Recently, I visited the All Saint's bog. I recommend that members visit the site, as it is incredible to see what has been done by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, and Bord na Móna, or BNM as the company is now known, working together. BNM has brought all of its contracting power and know-how. There is also the ecology part. They have done 24,500 ha. They were to do 33,000 ha, so we are trying to finish that bit off. That is funded by the Climate Action Fund. It is also funded by the EU. A bit part of that was the just transition piece because of where it was situated. That was the first just transition. I lived in County Offaly for a time and it is inspirational to see how the bog has been transformed. We are definitely going to look to support and further that.

Coillte, similarly, has been involved. Working through the programme board, we have said to the likes of the Department of agriculture that if there are programmes that are currently unfunded but can have big greenhouse gas emission, biodiversity and other benefits, then we are open for business as far as the Climate Action Fund goes. We are actively working with those bodies.

Section 15 applies where decisions are being taken within functions. Bord na Móna has transformed itself into a green company. As BNM has said itself, it has gone from brown to green. BNM has done an amazing job and I recommend that this committee talk to it.

On section 15, the Coolglass decision has put a lot of shape on the section and the arrangements there. It is integrated throughout the planning system, so it has a huge impact. All bodies with relevant powers have been looking at how the Coolglass decision reflects upon their own decision-making and how they can integrate it into their decision-making, which is important.

One instance where section 15 has been disapplied is the accelerating infrastructure legislation, which was passed by the Seanad last night. We are incredibly supportive of that Bill because the sorts of infrastructure to be delivered under it are the things that we need to deliver the decarbonisation and electrification of the economy. We believe that the decision to move faster on that infrastructure in the public interest is really important.

If the Government installed the right infrastructure, then it would meet the requirements of section 15.

Senator, we are totally out of time.

I know, but just to-----

The Senator asked about moving around the energy workload. I ask Ms Buckley to address that, moving energy off peak and encouraging consumers to be flexible in terms of energy usage.

That was the question on price setting.

Demand management has become part of what we do in electricity. It never was before. We now need to encourage all consumers of energy, including big enterprise consumers, to have more flexible demand patterns so that the system can cope, particularly at peak times. Up to now, demand has never formed part of how energy engineers thought about electricity. They just thought about generation and wires. Now, demand must become a significant part of it. In essence, we need a system that can cope with all levels of demand, from the time in the middle of the night during the summer when there is the lowest amount of electricity usage to the Dunkelflaute, as it is called, when there is no sun and no wind, it is winter, it is cold and dark, and everybody is going home and turning on their kettles at the same time, that being, the peak demand time between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. We will have to start shifting demand so that those peaks can be softened to enable the system to cope without necessarily having to keep adding power generation power to the system. I will give an example, although I am sorry to say this. I recently restructured the energy divisions of my Department into generation, demand and the bit in the middle, which is the wires or the grid, because we must now think of electricity in those three terms. More flexible demand by all consumers will have to become part of that. We need to structure tariffs in such a way that we enable and embolden consumers, of all natures, to be part of that flexibility.

Including industrial consumers.

Yes.

Apologies but I was introducing a Bill and could not be here.

The Secretary General, in her opening statement, said that Ireland had 8 GW. I listened to the start of her contribution but I did not hear her response in relation to the briefing document that showed that electricity regeneration was at 55%, which is still short of the 2030 target.

I will now mention something that I have never mentioned before, namely, private wires. My Bill would give more powers to the CRU to enable direct connections between renewable sources and end users. Has the Department assessed that option? Apart from the Bill, what is the Secretary General's current opinion on private wires for closing the gap in electricity generation?

My Department is working on private wires legislation. Obviously, we have had something to go Government. We hope to produce the actual legislation, which will sit within a European context of a direct wires system because there is existing European regulations in that space.

Private wires will have a role to play in the future although the public grid is fundamental to everything that we do. Most people will still want to connect to the grid.

With respect, the national grid is failing the public because it is unable to take in enough renewables and there is only one distribution system operator, DSO. I acknowledge what has been done by the ESB, ESBN and EirGrid. With respect, though, other EU countries have taken in direct lines and we have seen the price of electricity go really high. I look forward to the Department reviewing my Bill and I have no doubt that it will have constructive feedback.

Five weeks ago, the Minister told me on the record of the Dáil that he was very open to legalising plug-in solar for apartment dwellers. We are talking about Ireland reaching its climate targets. Germany, since 2018, has had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of such connections with zero reported grid incidents. I tabled a parliamentary question asking the Department whether there had been incidents. Following a 2024 consultation, a report was published last week with the five organisations of Eir, SEAI, ESBN, Bord Gáis and others. What has the Department done since? Members have lodged parliamentary questions. Following research, I learned that the original parliamentary questions were lodged in 2016 and I tabled a parliamentary question nearly 14 months ago. What has the Department done?

I represent struggling young adults, including young single adults, who can benefit from having plug-in solar technology. It has been said that there is an issue with electricity and plug-in solar. I am well aware of that, but could a pilot programme be done with new apartment builds? Has the Department assessed that?

We are very seriously looking at plug-in solar-----

Brilliant.

-----as part of the national energy affordability task force, NEAT. Yesterday, my chief technology officer sent me a technical assessment. I did not read it because I would not understand it but he said the findings were very positive.

There are slight differences between the German system and our own that might cause a couple more technicalities. Our system is essentially very similar to the UK system. The UK knows this is coming and we do too, so we are working with it to see how to manage this.

The UK published it yesterday. I know about the German system. The whole place was destroyed by the war and they rebuilt their entire grid and system. Fortunately, we are not as heavily involved. Is there a timeline or working group? Replies to parliamentary questions have said the Department is looking at it but Germany has already assessed it. The UK concluded there are no safety concerns below 800 W. The kits are on sale in Lidl, Aldi and IKEA in these countries. When people who live in apartments move they can just plug the kit out and bring it to their next place. The kits have an average life cycle of ten years in conjunction with batteries that are being sold for €329, which is a ten-year battery. The Department can really help people here and it should be done if we are to reach our climate targets. I think 3%, if not 4%, of all German electricity is generated by plug-in solar, which is an insane amount. For us to be lagging behind when people are struggling with bills is not acceptable, so I would really welcome the Department looking at that.

We are doing so. Solar is an incredible bright spot in energy generation. It has gone from being nothing on our system to the third-highest source of generation capacity this year. It took us 20 years to build 5 GW of onshore wind and it is looking like we will build 1 GW or more of solar this year alone. That is just remarkable and it is before plug-in solar. It is a combination of rooftop and utility. It is an amazing bright spot in our system. It is the cheapest energy we can generate and we generate it at home, so it is a really secure and sustainable form of energy.

I 100% agree. May I ask a question that will just take 30 seconds?

Very quickly.

I raised three times in the Dáil a semi-State company charging €440,000 for a direct under cable in Clare. A 60 MW solar farm is waiting for this to be done. Is there a guideline from the Department on how much the company can charge per megawatt? At the end of the day, the nearly €500,000 that is going to be put on a company that has already won its tender is going to go to the Irish people. I have raised it with the Taoiseach and the Minister and they are working on it. I welcome an Seanadóir Higgins mentioning the electrification of transport. This semi-State company, CIÉ, says in its commitments that it wants to electrify. If we are trying to electrify the transport system, why would a semi-State company be charging nearly €500,000 for a wire Iarnród Éireann engineers have said will cause no disruption to the system? The trains will not even know it is happening. Is the Department aware of this and has it engaged with CIÉ, which is a semi-State company and cannot be doing this?

I am not aware of the specific case.

I emailed the Department about it three weeks ago.

I am sure the Deputy did.

I have submitted parliamentary questions and written to the Taoiseach.

We have a couple of task forces that look at all these issues. We will find out about the specific question the Deputy has asked and ask the task force for renewable energy to look at the case in question.

The Department will come back to the Deputy.

We will come back to the Deputy directly.

Okay, thank you.

Go raibh maith agat.

Fáilte. Just a couple of other things from me. We have not really talked about the circular economy at all but it is essential if we are going to make progress. Our circularity rate is clearly really low. In Europe generally it is over 12%.

It is about 13%, yes.

We have set ourselves a target of being at 12% by 2030. That seems pedestrian. Where are we going wrong? What is not happening there?

Ireland has a very poor circular economy rate. It is about 2% or 3%, which is one of the worst in Europe. Even getting to the current European average would be a huge step forward. The Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, recently produced the second circular economy strategy. The goal is to move us up so we can get to mid-league at least, and it would be great if we could get even further.

A couple of things are needed. The EPA has worked with us on this but one of our biggest waste streams that still goes into landfill is construction demolition waste. We need to try to reduce that and increase the reuse of that. The second thing is working with businesses to start to introduce greater circularity design principles into the products they are producing in Ireland or buying into Ireland. We have to move it on. I remember reading the first circular economy strategy when I was applying for this job and thinking it was a bit like a man repairing bikes here and an organic farm doing something over there. It was rather bitty, pilot-based and experimental. What we need to do is really embed those principles across the economy and make it a really important part of it. The Netherlands has got to 30%, so there is a huge way we can go.

Some of the signal things we have done, like the deposit return scheme, bring a huge amount of responsibility and introduce the principle into people's daily lives, which is great. However, we need to get businesses to really engage with this and start to think of things they have previously disposed of as waste as, to be blunt, monetisable streams of things they can do things with. To give a great example, Midleton Distillery in Cork used to dispose of the organic remains left over after the distilling process. It now passes them on to - I think - a biomethane producer so biomethane can be made from them. Then there is an aggregate that comes from the biomethane that can be sold into agriculture. Suddenly, instead of having a waste product that gets dumped in a hole, you have two separate opportunities to make money from it. That is the sort of thing we need people to start thinking about. We would welcome a debate on the circular economy and the strategy at the committee.

It is on our work programme.

Great.

This issue has come up already, but I want to deal with this binary choice between housing and data centres from an electricity supply point of view. Ms Buckley was saying that is not the case now and it is not where we are at. That is correct, is it not?

The investments the Government has approved are aimed to support all the activities in the economy whether that is building and powering houses, powering small and medium businesses or powering large energy users. That is what those investments are for. We will have to work very hard because the economy is growing so fast and we are building houses so fast there are inevitable pressures on ESBN in particular, which does most of the building of grid, to try to deliver into the systems. We need to provide a phenomenal amount of new grid and new substations over the next five years if we are to meet that challenge. It is a huge challenge for the system and I do not want to underplay it. However, the goal of the energy system should be to provide energy where and when it is needed. We do not want to be the people who have to turn around to the Government and say it cannot do a policy it wants or it cannot build 300,000 houses. We need to be able to say to the Government that if it wants to build those houses, we will provide the energy to power them. That is what I spend an awful lot of my time beating up my CEOs to deliver.

Okay, that is great.

That is it from a members' perspective. I propose that we publish the opening statement on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed. I thank the Department officials for coming in and taking part in our meeting. Do you have a quick question, Senator Higgins?

It will be very quick.

I will give you 60 seconds and no more because we are under time pressure.

I am wondering whether there has been a risk analysis on the fossil fuel lock-in. I mean the risk attached to having the State LNG and the commercial LNG in the context of the six-year period. Ms Buckley has mentioned this five-year pressure point. We know there is a six-year lag where new data centres are allowed to use fossil fuels even beyond the 20%-----

Okay, so a risk assessment of that.

-----as well as the 20% we may be locking in.

Just a quick answer on that.

I am just concerned that we are making it harder to reach that last mile.

On the State LNG facility, an assessment was done and this was felt to be the best way we could meet net zero.

The risk in terms of the commercial is my question; not the risk in terms of the State. The Minister has declined to rule out commercial.

A commercial development is a commercial development. It would have to do its own risk assessments.

Yes, but Minister has declined to renew the policy statement against commercial LNG, or to put one in place. There was one previously.

No, what occurred was there was a policy statement about fracked LNG. That fell away with the review that was done under the energy security group.

Okay, we will-----

So there is no current-----

Sorry, Senator-----

I just want to be clear that there is a choice where there is no current imperative against commercial LNG from the Government side.

We have to wrap up because we have votes coming.

I have more.

This is what happens.

A cost-benefit analysis.

We will publish the opening statement on the committee website. I thank the witnesses for coming. We will be looking to have them back for regular engagement, so in the next six months we hope to have the Department here again. We look forward to progressing all these matters together.

I look forward to it.

The Department is key to this committee's work.

We will now suspend to allow the witnesses to leave the meeting.