Mr. Noel Cunniffe:

I will try to cover a couple of questions the Deputy mentioned. On price, the committee will be aware that with the design of the renewable electricity support scheme, it acts like a two-way contract for difference. Whenever the energy price is higher than the price of the auction, the projects actually pay back to the consumer. This year, we are already seeing a dramatic reduction in the public service obligation, PSO, levy as a result of this. The latter is expected to continue in future years, primarily due to the high price of gas right now which is in the region of €150 per megawatt hour in a day-ahead market. This compares with renewables, which are delivering in our first auction in the mid €70s. In the recent offshore auction in the UK, we saw we saw prices coming in at around €50 per megawatt hour. on the points made by Mr. Dollard and Mr. Lennon regarding the drop off of floating energy production, this will be seen and will again deliver good value to the consumer towards the end of this decade, and certainly into the early 2030s, as the PSO levy tends to pay back more and more to the consumer.

By 2030, 80% of Ireland's electricity will come from renewable energy sources. Earlier, I referred to the fact that Ireland had the highest auction price in all of Europe in 2020. This is something we fundamentally want to change. We have asked several times for a Government task force to be set up to really focus on the cost of renewables and how we can really minimise that as much as possible to get that payback to the consumer. This will be hugely important for the development of green hydrogen. We need cheap renewables to make green hydrogen work.

Deputy Bruton referred to our 5 GW target and what happens if we exceed it. With 5 GW of offshore wind, we would meet around 30% to 40% of our overall electricity demand by 2030. The key issue will be to try to find a home for it whenever all of that is blowing at once. Grid capacity is hugely important, as is the development of interconnectors. Projects such as the Celtic interconnector, the Greenlink interconnector and the North-South interconnector are under way at the moment. It is very important that they deliver. It is also very important that we kick off the green hydrogen economy, which is another home for that wind energy whenever it is available.

Reference is also made to how we reform the planning system. I will hand over to my colleague Mr. Moran to cover that matter.