Mr. John Walsh:

On the technology that exists at the moment, since we did our energy plan there are houses here that have a PV system on their roof and there is a kind of brain that controls it. The first thing it will do is power the house during the day so people can use their fridges, televisions or whatever.

It would then go out and charge the battery storage for the night and if there was an electric car, it would also charge that. There are now two or three people on the island using that system. For example, to go to Cork city from Bere Island, which is 85 miles each way, it is €2 or €3 to run an electric car but it is free from the sun. That technology is definitely there and hydrogen is coming down the line. I am aware of the projects that are going on in the Aran Islands and a number of islands throughout Europe are involved in that, including Rathlin Island. It is great to see that. The islands are great as test beds and we will all learn from the work they are doing. Hydrogen is a small bit off yet but there are other solutions. We see on other islands that at night they pump water up on the cheap electricity and let it down again in a kind of hydro system, so that can work. Even with the heating systems, I know of houses here that have a heat pump heating system, again, all worked from the sun and from storing electricity in batteries. The battery technology is changing to make things better again for us. The future is definitely bright for electricity generation and I think it will transform the islands.

To back up the point made by Deputy Ó Cuív about transport, when we did our energy masterplan here, the ferry services and marine transport services that are used on Bere Island accounted for about 75% of our overall energy usage, which definitely backs up the point. We had that done by an independent consultant and it backs up the point about the transport fares.

On the point made by the Chairman, we met representatives of National Broadband Ireland, NBI, as Comhdháil na hÉireann, and they said that, yes, they are supposed to put fibre to the home and they will do that on the islands, so every house on the island will be connected to fibre, but the connection between the island and the mainland will not be fibre, or that is what they told us. That might need to be looked at because we have to have a continuous line of fibre to get the 10 GB which will be needed for the future.