Mr. Frank Maughan:

I will deal with the question of the timeline and potentially overlapping application of the social climate fund and domestic measures, then I will ask Mr. Regan to take the questions on the ETS. The proposal as published by the Commission envisages that member states would prepare and submit a social climate plan by the end of 2024. It has directly linked that to an existing deadline for member states to update their NECPs, which are in place to set out how they will meet their current climate and energy targets under the pre-existing 2030 targets framework.

The NECP has to be updated by mid-2024 and the Commission is proposing that the social climate plan will be submitted alongside that. There is then a process whereby the Commission assesses the plan alongside the NECP. Clearly, they will be looking for coherence between the two. They will also be looking for coherence with member states' planned use of other EU funds, be it the Structural Fund or the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Ireland's plan for which has now been approved by the Commission. There is a fairly extensive process envisaged on the Commission side and then the Commission will formally adopt a decision to approve the plan for the member state after which it can commence expenditure.

On the second part of the question regarding the overlap, the Commission is presenting the proposal effectively as if nothing is happening in the sectors already in terms of the types of interventions. It does not address the question of whether member states can continue to do what they are doing. This is one of the points that needs to be teased out. What they say is that the funding can be used for two types of measures. The first of these are temporary income support measures. That is the type of measure the Deputy raised in respect of current types of social welfare supports. That is the type of measure that is contemplated there. The second type of measure is more in the line of household investments. That will be issues such as energy efficiency - retrofitting of buildings, installing zero-carbon heating or, as the case may be, cooling systems such as heat pumps - installing renewable energy, for example, photovoltaic panels on the roofs of houses, and supports for access to zero-emissions mobility, which could be, for example, supports for the uptake of electric vehicles along the lines of the grants that are currently available from the SEAI.

It is clear that, across the various types of interventions, the Commission contemplates that Ireland is already doing a lot of these things. The question we cannot answer right now is to what extent they will continue in parallel. On the face of it, they could because if it is not separately being funded by the EU budget, there is nothing to prevent the Government continuing to fund those measures domestically. It would give rise to questions of alignment and coherence. One thing that comes out from the Commission proposal is that it anticipates that member states, through their social climate plans, will establish clear targets and indicators for what they will achieve by their proposed investments under the social climate plan and the release of funds from the Commission to the member states is contingent on the achievement of those targets. It entails quite a degree of oversight by the Commission in terms of the expenditure of funding under the social climate plans and that would, in turn, give rise to questions about how money is spent in parallel through the Exchequer. These are all issues that will have to be teased through in understanding how the types of interventions under the social climate plan would fit into the policy interventions and funding interventions the Government has in place or has planned over the coming years.

The other questions are related to the scope of the sectors that are proposed to be brought into the ETS. I will ask Mr. Regan to take those.