Ms Avril N? Shearcaigh:

Sorry about that. I am a native of the Aran Islands in County Galway and I am currently employed as the manager of Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teoranta, the Aran Islands Energy Co-Operative. Our co-operative has five main goals, which are also in line with the recently published islands policy and accompanying action plan. We believe the energy transition offers us a unique opportunity to significantly contribute towards achieving these common goals. I will not list out how exactly we plan to achieve these goals, but I will list the goals.

Our number one goal is to stabilise and sustainably increase the population on the three islands; number two is to maintain the language, culture and heritage of our three islands; number three is to be sensitive to the beauty and richness of the natural environment in which we live; number four is to increase the comfort, energy efficiency and sustainability of our homes and transport; and number five is to promote the three Aran Islands as lighthouse communities, offering inspiration, support and examples of best practice to other communities in Ireland and throughout the world.

In order for our offshore islands to thrive, we need to ensure that the communities living on them are empowered and resilient, and that the disadvantages associated with living on our offshore islands ultimately do not outweigh the advantages. Many challenges felt by mainland communities are often felt earlier and more keenly by island communities. This is true of climate change, the cost of living and in areas such as housing, education, health and transport. The energy transition on our islands can have a positive impact in all of these areas, but not without Government support and strong political will.

By generating our own community-owned, clean energy locally, we can make the islands self sufficient, generate additional employment opportunities, lower energy costs and generate a public income to support local community development projects.

This could improve the standard of living on islands, the amenities available to locals, the services available and much more. By retrofitting homes and businesses on the islands to a high standard we can improve the living conditions in the often older, less efficient and more expensive to run homes and even free up additional homes which have been left vacant. This would again aid significantly in lowering the cost of living on our islands, solve some of the issues we have relating to the shortage of housing, improve the health and well-being of our residents and, in turn, aid in the re-growth of the islands' population.

By decarbonising the transport systems both on and to the islands we can reduce our carbon footprint. On the Aran Islands, transport, mainly transport to the islands, accounts for more than 60% of our carbon emissions, according to our energy master plan.

There is no shortage of examples available to show how important the energy transition on the islands could be in solving many of the challenges we face. Not only would carrying out this important work help with the problems we face now, it would also help to sustain the islands long into the future.

I understand that all I have outlined will take significant investment from the Government and buy-in from organisations such as the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, ESB Networks, local authorities and many more. The will of the community on the Aran Islands is certainly there and I have no doubt it is there on the other islands too. So far, we on the Aran Islands have retrofitted 50% of buildings on the islands to some degree. Many homes have photovoltaic, PV, panels generating electricity, as well as electric vehicles, EVs, and heat pumps. We are finding it increasingly difficult, however, to continue this work without additional measures and funding above and beyond what is already available. We recognise the new efforts being made through the living islands policy aim to tackle some of these issues but that support needs to be scaled up drastically if we are to grasp the opportunity we now have.

The islands also present a valuable opportunity to the Government to trial a transition to clean energy which maximises the secondary benefits for its citizens, as I have outlined, and where valuable lessons can be learned before scaling up a similar transition for the rest of the country.

I thank the committee for inviting me to attend and for giving us this opportunity. Go raibh maith agaibh.