Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the energy Estimate, the Minister referred to a meeting held in Boyle, County Roscommon, earlier in the year. That meeting was useful in terms of the Brexit discussion. Something similar could be done on energy because we must bring everyone with us, including all the political parties, business people, local authorities and members of the public, on this issue. We need to create a movement to change our approach to energy use and production.

I note the total Estimate for the year increased by 28% to €115 million, which clearly reflects needs. A significant gap must be bridged. The Minister indicated in the Dáil yesterday that not only would we not reach our target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, we would not even meet the other target mentioned, namely, a reduction of between 6% and 11%. I understand the Minister stated the reduction could be as low as 4%. Is that correct? If so, that would be a serious concern.

On the electrification of transport, the ESB funds the installation of electric charging points, of which we need many more. The parties are generally in agreement on these issues. Who would fund an increase in the number of charging points given that the ESB is not Mother Teresa of Calcutta and will not continue to dish out money for this infrastructure? If the ESB has a responsibility to do this, that would be fine, but as a commercial semi-State company, it will clearly want to achieve a return on any investment. I ask the Minister to clarify the position in this regard.

Major changes will be needed in renewable energies. From my meetings with people involved in the sector in the past 18 months, it is clear they have not yet started to consider microgeneration seriously. The big players in the sector and the Government talk about the issue but it is time they started to act to advance microgeneration. The future of renewable energy will not be a handful of sources of electricity generation. The biogas project in County Kildare is being delivered by Mr. Costello. We need to start similar projects nationwide. Germany is taking this approach. Britain, which is not viewed as a green nation, is ahead of us on energy. As a country that is trying to develop a green image from a sustainability point of view and from the point of view of our agriculture and food production sectors, we must get ahead. We have an oversized agriculture sector and we have not closed the circle. We are producing much more milk and beef than previously. I would like to see much more mixed farming. From a sustainability point of view, we are in danger of crashing the car as we seek to meet our environmental obligations.

We have not even started to address the issue of slurry, which is being turned into dry fertiliser pellets in other countries. Other than one or two projects, including the one to which I referred, we have barely started thinking about biogas. We are heading for a crisis with the European Commission regarding pig slurry. We have had a number of years to take action on this issue but have failed to do so. Will the Minister outline his plans in respect of electric charger points and the agriculture issues I raised?

A great deal of good work has been done on retrofitting houses built in before 2007, including in 2004 and 2005. While I do not argue against retrofitting these houses, the problem is that houses built in 1917 and 1920, the year the late Liam Cosgrave was born, are not being retrofitted because this is a much more difficult task. Many of the people living in these houses are elderly and are experiencing fuel poverty. These homes are affected most by heat loss and are the most expensive dwellings to heat. I have raised this with every Minister in the past six and a half years. I ask the Minister to deal with these houses. While I accept that they are the most difficult and most expensive to retrofit, we must start to do so.