Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

To move to a slightly different area, in July last year the ESRI published its study on the environmental and economic impacts of Covid-19 on the Irish economy. From an environmental perspective, some of the findings were interesting. One of the main findings was that the results implied that: "[A]lthough lower energy prices will boost energy demand, the impacts of decreased energy demand due to decreased consumption and production will be larger. As a result, the economy-wide CO2 emissions decline by 9.5% in 2020".

The actual greenhouse gas emissions decline in 2020 was 5.9%. I am not as interested in the forecasting element because I am well aware that it is a bit of a dark art. I am not questioning the figures on that basis. However, I am interested in the factors the ESRI feel led to lower than expected emissions savings. How can we get better at forecasting energy use, emissions and costs? Do we have plans for how to integrate this into our medium-term financial forecasting?