Mr. Brian Carroll:

I will address the Climate Change Advisory Council view that we will not meet our 2020 targets. The Department accepts that in terms of the latest Environmental Protection Agency emissions projections, which have been outlined. We are going to be between 4% and 6% below 2005 levels as against the target of 20% below 2005 levels. There are reasons for this, including reduced investment capacity over the period of the economic downturn.

It is worth making several points about the national mitigation plan and some of the criticism that is being levelled against it. The document was published in July 2017. It is a direct and honest document. It quite clearly stated the scale of the problem. It recognised that we would not meet our 2020 target. It also set down measures that we have in place and measures under consideration. It was a real statement. It also recognised its own inadequacy in terms of not setting out a complete pathway to decarbonise by 2050. Given the challenge to decarbonise by 2050, not to mind 2020 or 2030 targets, and the way technology changes so rapidly, it would not be possible to set out a clear pathway all the way to 2050. What the national mitigation plan said was that it would become a living document, a first step. It was not the case that the plan was in place and set in stone and that we could move to implementation. We are implementing but we are constantly developing policy at the same time.

It may be unfair to say that there is a lack of specific detail in the mitigation plan. There are 106 actions, some of them very important in terms of enabling us to move forward with climate mitigation policy. A total of 61 sectoral measures were in place and 17 sectoral measures were under consideration.

The national development plan makes good on the promise that mitigation policy will be developed on an ongoing basis or that the national mitigation plan will become a living document. In the national development plan, €22 billion is earmarked for climate mitigation investment. Some €8 billion of this is Exchequer investment while €14 billion is non-Exchequer. That investment will make a significant impact in decarbonising in the period to 2030, but we will still continue to develop policy on an ongoing basis.

I will set out a flavour of some of the things in the national development plan. There is an objective to have 500,000 electronic vehicles on the road by 2030. From 2030 onwards fossil-fuelled cars will not be allowed to be sold in Ireland and from 2045 there will be no NCT certificates issued for such cars. The plan aims to increase the retrofitting of houses to 45,000 per annum to BER B rating, which is a deep level of retrofitting. We know that 500,000 houses are remote from the gas grid and largely reliant on fossil fuels for heating. The plan is for 170,000 of these to be transitioned to sustainable heating by 2030.

The national mitigation plan was the first step. We said we would continue to develop policy. The national development plan is the next iteration, within the climate priority, of the development of mitigation policy. There is an EU requirement to develop a national energy and climate plan. Again, that will give us further opportunity to bring forward new policy, possibly looking at the areas of taxation and regulation.