Mr. Paddy Mahon:

I might ask my colleague Mr. David Mellett, from the Climate Action Regional Office, to respond also.

On resources, as I stated in my opening remarks, we have identified in our strategic plan for the sector additional resources that we believe are needed in every local authority.

We give a good and firm sort of understanding of what resources we would need in addition to those we have. I will not get into great detail now because of time but we envisage additional resources will be required to deliver on our ambition.

On the area of the role of youth, I will ask Mr. Mellett to speak to that because the climate action regional offices have had engagement on this and we have worked with Comhairle na nÓg in partnership with the Department in having a conversation on climate earlier in 2021.

On public lighting, I am kind of afraid to mention a figure but every public light in the country will be retrofitted if it has not been already as part of a major programme by local authorities to reintroduce energy-efficient bulbs to the core public lighting stock. It is a significant number and the process is regional. The southern region signed the contract just before Christmas to replace the public lights in the south of the country. We divided the country into three regions for the purpose, and of the others, the midlands and east will I hope go to contract in the first half of this year. The other region, comprising the west and north west, will do that we hope later in the year. A number of local authorities are not participating in this but delivering their own public lighting programme individually.

Our committee has commissioned a working group to work with representatives from our sector, the SEAI and the Department of Transport to look at reimagining our fleet. A major survey is under way to identify the number of vehicles that each city and county council has and the number that are electric. A significant number are not but we are trying to get an understanding of what we have and the challenges we will have in "reimagining" our fleet to reduce our emissions of carbon from fuel as quickly as possible.