Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Whitmore's amendment asks for "a sub-sectoral emissions ceiling". However, it subsequently appears to be a cross-sectoral measure so it is not sub-sectoral. It applies to everything because everything that has electricity would be affected. The amendment also says that if a sector switches towards electricity to save on emissions, that should not count towards its emissions savings. I am confused by that. Moving towards electricity in, for example transport and heating - it need not be electric vehicles, it might be electric trains, bikes or whatever - is an important tool. It will be one element of trying to cut emissions. I do not think it should count for nothing. The EU, as some Deputies have mentioned, has agreed with us on a 70% use of renewable energy in electricity by 2030. We have a target and I think the Deputy is proposing to change that to 100% net - whatever we interpret "net" to mean.

The Deputy talked about demand. I think she was making a comparison with recycling, avoidance and reuse and proposing we should look at the same thing in electricity, which is absolutely true. The suppression of demand is an important factor, as well as switching people from one power source to another. If one can avoid the task being carried out or suppress the demand for it in some way, that is also a measure. We see that in the smart meter roll-out, which is an attempt to price electricity differently at different times of the days and set demand in that way. With this Bill, the Deputy is open to taking actions like this through the climate action plan. That mechanism will have public consultation and ongoing citizen engagement whereby a feature like this can be introduced.

The EU has energy efficiency targets for 2030 that we have signed up to in order to achieve a 32.5% reduction in energy use compared to what it would be without those measures. That comes back to demand management.

The Deputy spoke about data centres. It is a big debate. We have many of them and are planning to have more. We also plan to have large quantities of renewable energy. It is not in the amendment but I think it is in later amendments today. It might be better to talk about it at that stage or have a separate debate about it. It is a large area and I would be happy to talk about it at another session but I oppose the amendment.