Like my colleague Senator Ní Chuilinn, I congratulate Senator Nicole Ryan. We are on a cross-party group about pregnancy and infant loss together and she has been amazing to work with. I can only imagine the joy this morning in her little family. It is absolutely amazing news.

I was standing on a sideline, as people with children do, a few weeks ago and ended up talking to someone about solar panels. The person was not talking to me from a political perspective. The person mentioned that they are a teacher, as is their wife and they have had to ring Electric Ireland to set up a payment plan to pay their energy costs. I was thrown when I heard that two people in full-time employment had that type of issue. They live in a semi-detached house in rural Ireland. It got me thinking about what more we need to do to support people with energy costs and support our country to be able to provide more energy.

Our electricity is expensive because we have a perfect storm of structural problems, rather than there being a single cause. ESRI researchers say that Ireland's exposure to international gas markets was the biggest reason for household electricity prices becoming so high in recent years. The main reasons are heavy dependence on gas, with around 50% of Irish electricity generation still coming from gas, being an energy island with expensive grid infrastructure and small market size, taxes and levies, supplier strategies and having a lot of rural one-off housing meaning there are more poles, wires and maintenance per household. There are a lot of things we need to do, such as accelerating offshore wind and renewables, building major battery storage, expanding interconnectors to other countries, reforming our pricing and speeding up planning and grid delivery. We are giving out super energy grants at the moment for people to be able to make their homes more energy efficient. There is a good one for a new front door; people can get €800 towards that. They can get €3,000 or €4,000 for double glazed windows and €1,500 for attic insulation. I was delivering a leaflet recently and a woman said to me that she will not be able to get the grants as it is means-tested. Therefore, I encourage people. They can get it. It is not means-tested. However, maybe we need to look at the criteria for applying for the grants and not make them so strict. We need to allow people to allow their homes to become more energy efficient and to increase the amount we are giving for solar panels because we definitely need to be able to produce our own energy. I would welcome a debate on that.