Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Just for a point of information on the regulations that would allow people to put more solar panels on their roofs and to allow schools, public buildings, farms and so on to do so, the appropriate assessment finished last week, so it actually happened within a matter of weeks. The same will happen for the strategic environmental assessment, SEA. The problem was getting to that point. The appropriate assessments are not the difficulty. I believe it is important to put that on the record. We should see that soon if the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage moves on it, which was something I was concerned about in the first place.

On a personal note, I now have solar panels. There is an app and it shows me how much I am gaining, which is then shared widely with everybody I know. It is not just the people on my street. That kind of shareable information is having a knock-on impact because it can be seen what the gains are. Are there opportunities to do that across the board, not just with solar but to think innovatively about how we share and use digital and social media to share what the benefits are? Senator McGahon raised the question of how much a person actually saves from attic insulation and these things. Is there more the SEAI could be doing around that? Those are my main comments on it.

To go back to one other point around electric vehicles, EVs, absolutely modal shift has to be number one, but we also need to be very aware that modal shift is only one thing that has to happen. We also need to be very honest with ourselves that there needs to be a shift across the board in every form of transport.