Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is not just on paper. There are 33,000 ha of land being rewetted as we speak, which is reducing real emissions. I do wish to increase this and we are setting 80,000 ha or so as the target. This is not on paper, it is real. The forestry programme introduced in November is also not just on paper. It is hard cash and will be revolutionary in its delivery. We are going to start to see very quickly now, to my mind, a massive expansion in the plantation of forestry here. Having a €1.3 billion budget behind this plan is not just something on paper. This is real. We can and will do this. As we do this, as well, we will show that it is not, as some might depict it, anti-rural or anti-farming. This is about ensuring we have a really secure future for the family farm and provide the funding and training required for this to be the case. This does take a certain amount of time, however. Our biggest restriction in all these areas is people. We have only two forestry courses producing graduates and we have a real shortage of people. It would be nice to click our fingers and say, "I want 5,000 foresters tomorrow", but these must come in the context of training and financial support from the Government and we will provide it.

The first tenet here is the need to get democratic consent. The second is that the State does not break contracts. I accept the Deputy's point about the data centres adding to our electricity demand and this putting real pressure on us. This State does not, however, go back on its word. If a contract has been signed and someone has an agreement with the State in respect of getting a grid connection or getting planning permission, for example, we do not just say we have changed our minds because there is another policy issue we must address. Those data centres will come online, but what we need to do is to ensure the electricity system that provides for them is able to decarbonise at the same time. Equally, these data centres too, in the context of the regulations and the way they operate, must start to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.

The Deputy mentioned the introduction of new gas-fired power generation being a problem, but we need that generation. Any analysis of how you decarbonise an Irish electricity system would recognise balancing capability. Take the week before Christmas when the wind did not blow. We cannot say to the people that we are going to decarbonise their electricity system 52 weeks of the year and leave them without heat, power or light in the week they need it most. We have to provide that for those two weeks of the year, and we are doing it.