Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I thank the Deputy. I am happy to touch on some of those issues. A I said earlier, given the type of cost increases, which are fourfold or fivefold in energy bills, significant supports will be needed for survival. However, we also have a strong and important window of opportunity to accelerate adoption of renewable and low-carbon technology. Many of our members want to avail of technology investment opportunities and right now the return on investment rationale, if they are competing for that capital within a group or whatever the situation, is much stronger.

We need to look at the immediate and short-term survival piece but also the investment from a low-carbon perspective. We would like to see the types of supports that are available through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland increased and made more effective to be able to deliver those much more rapidly. That could all make a material difference very quickly.

With regard to the types of schemes the Deputy spoke about, such as loan-to-equity type approaches, given what we learned during Covid-19, I believe we are going to have to apply the same type of approach here. Speed is of the essence and while we will probably not get everything 100% right, what we saw during Covid-19 is that if we do it quickly, we will save jobs and businesses. Whatever these schemes are, it must be possible to implement them rapidly. That would be our priority.