Mr. William Walsh:

Absolutely. Thank you, Chairman. I will make some kind of response to the questions and I might ask Dr. Byrne or Mr. O'Mahony to respond. As part of the national development plan, we worked on the holistic concept of retrofitting Ireland so we may have some numbers, but we did not commission a report to estimate that.

The IPCC report is alarming and it does point to actions individuals and countries can take. On electric vehicles, we have seen the first quarter figures for 2022 versus 2021. Some 12% of cars sold in quarter one this year were electric vehicles compared to approximately 5% last year. We can see an increase in uptake of electric vehicles, which is welcome. In general, every electric vehicle that we sell is one internal combustion engine off the road. That is the main driver behind this. As an organisation, we run the electric vehicle scheme and the charging infrastructure schemes on behalf of the Department of Transport. We are able to provide policy advice on the challenges and changes that we see, such as the change in the scheme to address the fact that a lot of the higher-end vehicles were being supported through grants. There is only a limited amount of funding available for the conversion from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles over the next ten years and we want to make sure it is maximised. The Department made changes to address that.

In terms of retrofit, going forward we see technology will reduce the cost. In 2012, we sold eight electric vehicles. We were trying to increase the number we sold. We were up to 14,000 last year and given the demand at this point in time we believe we could sell as many as we could get into the country. It is because technology has switched. Electric vehicles have overcome issues such as range anxiety and they are a very enjoyable drive compared to what they may have been before. The cost of EVs is driven by some of the component parts. It is the same with solar PV, which now costs 80% of what it used to cost. We see demand increase on that basis. We see the same with retrofit. When we get better at doing retrofit, and when we can reduce costs as we move through the decade, it is the same concept, we see the capacity for us to start delivering at the levels we speak to when technology will allow us to do that. As Ms McCarthy outlined in relation to the national heat study, we see where we can target our interventions and start to really ramp things up.

Regarding Ireland's retrofit programme, we spoke last week to 20 countries at the International Energy Agency. All of those countries want to hear about what is happening in Ireland because what we are doing is class leading. That is feedback that we have got through the week in email after email asking questions about how they can do what we are doing. From that perspective, we are very happy that progress has been made, but we are not going to sit on our hands, we have got to get better at this because we must deliver the 500,000, an increase from 8,000 and onwards up to the numbers that Deputy Whitmore has asked about.

E-bikes are a policy issue for the Department of Transport. We see the value in e-bikes, in particular in the context of increased cycling infrastructure that has been put in place by many local authorities at the moment, which we welcome.

I have touched on the piece around technology. A lot of what is happening at the moment, and what will get us to 2030 and also 2050, will be technology. Ms McCarthy referenced that right now we do not have time to wait for certain technologies that people promised would arrive in 2029. They said that we should hold off until then, but we need to take action today based on the technology that we have and to push forward on that basis.

A question was not asked on research and development, but SEAI has a significant budget and we work with industry and academia to take technology and apply it in the Irish context. We are very different to many other parts of the world. We have a different reliance on fossil fuels and a different opportunity with offshore wind, onshore wind and onshore solar. Technology is an important part of what we are doing in SEAI.