Dr. Paul McGowan:

I might add a few points regarding hydrogen. In preparing, for example, to accept blended hydrogen-natural gas onto the system, that may not be a choice we make. It may be a choice that is placed upon us by the composition of gas that we import. Therefore, we need to and have already started examining the safety implications of introducing hydrogen into the natural gas system because we may just end up importing it. What it highlights is the importance of Ireland having a hydrogen strategy, which identifies the sectors we want to decarbonise with hydrogen. There has been some talk internationally and nationally on concentrating on the hard-to-decarbonise sectors, the highly energy intensive sectors, which currently use natural gas. They may or may not be capable of being supplied with hydrogen directly while, for example, it may be the case that local distribution zones on the system can be converted in stages over to hydrogen. I would not say we necessarily must accept that a transition to hydrogen is completely locking-in the use of natural gas. There are means by which hydrogen can be targeted at hard-to-decarbonise sectors but it illustrates the requirement for a strategy around hydrogen.