Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee very much for their invitation to attend this meeting. Along with my colleagues to whom the Cathaoirleach referred earlier, I am also joined by Mr. Patrick Neary, assistant secretary. I look forward to this opportunity, my first, to engage with the committee as Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications regarding my Department's 2022 Appropriation Account and the performance of certain residential retrofit schemes in 2022. I am very happy to be here alongside Mr. William Walsh and his team.

Last year was an exceptional one for my Department in terms of expenditure. During 2022, my Department was approved for three supplementary Estimates, in March, July and October. These totalled an additional allocation of €1.743 billion, an almost tripling of the original allocation for the year, from €926 million to €2.67 billion. The first supplementary allocation was in relation to the first electricity credit introduced to offset the sharp increase in energy prices for households during the winter of 2022. The second was to fund additional electricity emergency generation capacity for the winter of 2023-24 through to the winter of 2025-26. The third mainly concerned the electricity credit for the winter of 2022-23, along with some additional funding for the electricity emergency generation capacity, based on forecasts at that time.

The total gross expenditure under the Vote in 2022 amounted to €2.366 billion. This was €304 million, or 11%, below the revised budgetary allocation, including a capital carryover of €2.67 billion. The main reason for the underspending was €199 million in relation to the Supplementary Estimate for emergency generation capacity.

The unprecedented spending of €1.975 billion under the Department's energy transformation programme reflected the focus on energy affordability as a result of rising international prices and the knock-on effect caused to domestic customers by the war in Ukraine. As part of the Government's response to the resulting cost-of-living crisis, €1.588 billion was provided for the Government's two electricity costs emergency benefits schemes. The first scheme credited €200, including VAT, to more than 2.1 million domestic electricity accounts in April and May 2022. In response to continued price rises, the Government introduced a second scheme amounting to a total of €600, including VAT, to domestic electricity accounts between November 2022 and April 2023. In light of the continued high energy bills faced by households, a third scheme was announced by the Government in budget 2024, which will see a further €450, including VAT, credited to an estimated 2.237 million domestic electricity accounts between December 2023 and April 2024. In total, therefore, domestic electricity accounts will have been credited with €1,250 since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

In June 2022, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, directed EirGrid to procure approximately 450 MW of additional generation capacity for the winter of 2023-24 through to the winter of 2025-26 to offset a potential capacity shortfall in electricity supply. Some €151 million in financial support was provided to EirGrid to place orders for the electricity generation units and to ensure they were delivered and installed in time for this winter. The balance of the cost of delivering the additional capacity is being managed through EirGrid's own corporate resources and transmission use-of-system charges. No further Exchequer funding will be required.

Over €200 million was spent on residential community retrofit programmes in 2022, some €151 million from this Vote and €49 million from the energy-efficiency national fund. This expenditure supported 27,200 home energy upgrades.

Of these, 4,438 homes were delivered across the fully funded energy poverty schemes, principally the warmer homes scheme. Of the overall 27,200 upgrades delivered, 8,481 homes were upgraded to a post-works building energy rating, BER, of B2 or better in 2022, representing a 95% increase in B2 upgrades year on year. Significantly, following a Government decision in February 2022, the SEAI also established a network of one-stop-shops. Mr. Walsh will speak to the SEAI delivery so I will not talk to it any further.

The national broadband plan is a key enabler for implementation of the digital connectivity strategy. The availability of high-speed, reliable, digital connectivity will support the delivery of Ireland’s economic and social ambitions and will position Ireland at the forefront of European and global digital developments. In its State of the Digital Decade 2023report published on 27 September, the European Commission highlights that Ireland is expected to make a positive contribution to the collective efforts to achieve the EU’s digital decade targets. It notes that our country shows a high level of digital skills and has the potential to further improve its performance in digital infrastructure and digitalisation of businesses.

There was expenditure of €177 million on the national broadband plan in 2022. This was an increase of €32 million on the 2021 outturn of €145 million. By the end of 2022, design work was completed on 351,240 premises, network build was completed for 122,440 premises, 109,256 premises were passed, and over 19% of the intervention area was completed. In addition, 27,682 premises were able to avail of high-speed broadband services, with a further 4,029 connections pending. By the end of 2022, 281 public broadband connection points were in place, with 278 of these open for business. These are located in places of community importance, including community centres, local hubs and so on. In addition, more than 561 schools in remote rural locations had a connection installed, with 199 of these schools provided with high-speed connectivity by the end of 2022.

As of 27 October 2023, significant additional progress has been made. National Broadband Ireland, NBI, is reporting that design is completed on more than 432,259 premises, in excess of 202,000 premises can place an order or pre-order for connection through broadband service providers, and more than 191,000 premises are passed across 26 counties, of which 18,815 are farms. A total of 58,332 premises have now been connected, with National Broadband Ireland connecting around 3,500 homes each month. To date, the level of connections is in line with projections and some areas are exceeding targets. The Government and the NBI have agreed to accelerate the roll out of high-speed broadband to some 672 schools across the State in the intervention area. This acceleration is on target to be complete by the end of 2023. This will ensure all schools across the State will have the necessary infrastructure to carry out their critical day-to-day educational activities unimpeded by poor broadband.

In 2022, the Department provided €97 million on climate action and environment leadership programmes. Almost €52 million of this expenditure was provided to the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, under that subhead. This supports the EPA in the delivery of its mandate and purpose to protect, improve and restore our environment.

I will mention a couple of other things in the interest of time.