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

Yes. The ability to draw down the funds in a speedy manner has been somewhat frustrating. An example is district heating in Dublin city, a project with which the Deputy will be very familiar. This was originally funded under the climate action fund in 2017 to 2018, from memory, and it has not been able to get the business case to full tendering. I expect that to happen in the coming days, if not weeks.

There are a number of other projects which we will be assessing and I hope to support. I will give the Deputy an example. We recently launched a biomethane strategy where we are looking to develop anaerobic digestion. We will use the climate fund as a capital grant support system for such projects in advance, all going well, of the allocation of funding from the infrastructure, climate and nature fund to that type of project. The climate fund would provide a very useful interim funding mechanism to get things off the ground.

A similar example, again from memory, is the retrofitting of public buildings. Where there is no budget allocation, the fund could help as some Government Departments could use it in that way. Other areas include sustainable mobility hubs and some of the other Pathfinder projects in transport.

There are a number of different projects which I will bring to the Department to get approval for under the fund. Our biggest challenge has been the ability to turn applications around and deploy capital quickly. That needs to improve.