Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I thank the Chair for allowing me in and I welcome the witnesses.

Mr. Foley and Mr. Ryan spoke about hydrogen and offshore. We are in a crisis at the moment and it looks like we will be over the next year, 18 months or two years. Give us a realistic target for offshore and for when they think that hydrogen will be workable. That is my first question to them.

To the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, I listened to Mr. Gannon earlier on. He spoke about a plant that is being built in Northern Ireland and noted it is a different jurisdiction, which it is. He referred to the planning laws. Is it not hypocritical of Europe to state they are bringing the Minister to a meeting next week where they will talk about going a different way with energy and perhaps looking at the planning system differently when it is actually the directives and planning systems with which we have to comply? These have come out of Europe and are stopping the Government from putting in new infrastructure rapidly. Is there not an opportunity for any Minister or Government that has not been taken by the Minister? He spoke about bringing together an emergency group of the different bodies involved but did not talk about emergency legislation like, for example, what was done by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, with modular homes when he brought in emergency legislation to give the State the right to be exempt from planning for certain things that were needed in an emergency. Why did the Minister or his Department not look at that in trying to resolve this issue?

The Minister also spoke about retrofitting. Are we still going down the road in the warmer homes scheme whereby 95% of all pumps that are put in are either gas or oil? Is it correct that unfortunately, when you put air-to-water systems into some of those homes, they are less efficient because the house is not insulated well enough? Could the Minister comment on that? Will he make an intervention between the ESB and the Government? Last Sunday week, I spent a few hours in Derrybrien, which is not in my constituency. There are 70 turbines that would power the whole of County Galway that are sitting still. It is criminal that this is happening when Ireland is running out of power and both the Government and the ESB look on while these are standing still. It can cater for 50,000 houses when the wind is blowing and no one will make a decision. They are actually talking about taking them down, which is criminal. Have the likes of Lanesborough or Shannonbridge been looked at for biomass?

In the event of a doomsday, has EirGrid a plan in place that it could put out to give reassurance to the ordinary public? Such a plan would say what will be knocked first and what will be knocked second, which would give a roadmap of where we are going in this regard.