Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

No,you are not but some elements, such as building materials, present a huge opportunity. Construction waste is a massive issue. The ability to drive decarbonisation by using wood materials in construction is an example of that circular economy approach. However, it tends to be speckled across different ministerial responsibilities. I will make two further points on what the Deputy has said. I agree with him about the biodiversity plan and there are a lot of legislative pieces in train here. My understanding is that yesterday was the final sign-off in the European Parliament on the nature restoration law. The nature restoration plan will be required to integrate with the climate plan. That is why the land use review is important. It is a way of combining the two to make sure we optimise it for both, in respect of maritime as well as on land. More important is what the Deputy said about community engagement, which I agree with. We are already engaged. We have various schemes. A lot of sports grounds now are part our scheme for EV charging points or renewable power. I see the Tidy Towns potentially evolving to have significant involvement. There is a strong tradition here. I would bring it down to that level of engagement. We have 750 sustainable energy communities, which have done a lot of good work but my sense is they have only got so far and we now need to bring them much further in terms of aggregating for microgeneration, retrofitting and so on. I look at the example of Terenure 2030 in my own constituency, which was a brilliant example of business and local community coming together. We did stuff and it was good. We did stuff in Terenure school, in retrofitting and in mapping how much energy goes into Terenure and how much it costs. Did we really scale up the opportunity? I do not think we have yet. One of the areas with greatest potential is to give those sustainable energy communities the ability to go further. I will be careful I do not get into trouble here, but one of my main things is resourcing. We have a lot of stuff, which is on a voluntary basis, and sometimes you need more permanent, paid skilled resources that can bring those communities to the next stage. That is one of the areas with greatest potential. I will get into trouble because I do not think we budgeted for anything like that.