Ms Clare Watson:

We need to bring the people along with us. Without people collaborating and participating in a decision it becomes top-down quickly leading to what we have seen in France. The plastic bag tax a positive example of a tax that worked. People were prepared over a period of two years for that. We need to feed that into our thinking. My research shows the importance of the resources put in at the grass roots. While leadership is key, grass-roots involvement is also key. At the moment we have many community energy groups and sustainable energy communities. We are working with people in Dingle on an interesting project. However, they cannot access money to employ somebody, for instance, to co-ordinate the work, or someone with community development experience who knows how to work with people. There is a significant gap and I urge the committee to bear that in mind and to put some time aside to look at how to engage with people.

The issue of getting the message out has come up previously. It is key to get the right message goes out. At the moment what we hear on the radio is conflicting. We are being advised to get a condensing boiler, a heat pump or an electric car. There is a debate over whether we should burn turf briquettes. Somehow we need to overcome that as part of the package.