Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It simply will not resolve the challenges that we face here. The Deputy said that there is no help to do anything except to go to financial institutions and then she made a pitch for an adjustment of the means test on a scheme that provides 100% assistance to people in fuel poverty to do exactly what the Deputy is asking for. There is clearly State support to help people. Some 32,000 homes undertake retrofitting every year and all of that receives support from the State. People are changing to electric and hybrid vehicles. That has increased sixfold so far this year and the State is supporting those people in that change. There is a grant of €5,000 from one's vehicle registration tax, VRT, a €5,000 subsidy and a subsidised electric vehicle charger. Many people are making that choice. As technology becomes available and the price of changes reduces, more people will make that change. The State will design a scheme to make it easier for people to take on the retrofitting challenge.

We are devising ways of doing this that will help people to make the change. That is the right thing to do in this situation. Many people recognise that and we have taken advice from the Climate Change Advisory Council which was established to help us to do this. We are taking up much of its advice and the advice of this committee. That is how electric vehicles will be taken up. We purchase 280,000 vehicles each year so our aim is that 960,000 of those would be electric vehicles by 2030. That is achievable. I believe that technology will make that possible and people will not only have a better environment but also cheaper costs. The cost of running a petrol car is eight times that of running an electric vehicle. There are savings to be made. People will make decisions that are in their long-term interest.

The evolution of data centres is not an invention of this document. The reality is that data centres are being established here. We need a strategy to manage the demand that is coming from data centres which is part of the evolution of the digital society. We need to manage it in a way in which it does not put excessive strain on the targets that we are trying to achieve. This is about better regional allocation of such investments but also seeing that those companies would seek to make their own arrangements for securing sustainable renewable energy to serve their needs, so that the needs of those multinational companies would not all fall back on the State. As the Deputy rightly says, they should carry some of their responsibility.

The airline industry is part of the emissions trading system. It is not a sector where we have a legal obligation to make changes in Ireland. It is part of a global European emissions trading system. We will support changes in that emissions trading system to demand more contributions from those airlines in making the change.

I hope I have responded to all of the points raised.