Ms Kerrie Sheehan:

In tandem with the fundamentals of regulating planning and finance, this is also looking at how we will do this. We have to do it very fast and we have to get roll-out to get our targets and decarbonised heat, in which Ireland is a laggard at the moment.

From a practical point of view, the national heat study showed that just over 50% of heat could be achieved through district heating. Ireland currently has 1% through district heating. That was assuming all things were equal, however. Building on that and challenging each of the assumptions of that particular calculation, we have done further work to identify candidate areas around Ireland. It is basically a heat map, if one were to look at it. Again, there are assumptions with any of these things. This then informs us on where to delve further. If we think of the darker colour of where there is higher density of demand or load, then we need to get to those individual areas. That is where the feasibility comes into this.

We have a few prongs on this. One is what Deputy Bríd Smith spoke about, which is a particular site that is using gas for the communal heating system. We are looking at the feasibility of decarbonising that. At the same time, we are looking into parameters for a scheme, or enhancing a scheme, to fund feasibility studies into the future. Then, to inform that, we are conducting our own three-sample feasibility studies. What these are looking at when they go down is-----