Mr. Paul Blount:

I suppose when we talk about fit for purpose, we are trying to learn some lessons. The wind sector, for example, has been struggling to get projects through planning in recent times. What we have seen at a national level has been great ambition and leadership and targets being set, so everything is being put in place at national level. When that is translated to the local level, however, what we have seen is that sometimes local policy is shifting in the opposite direction, against national policy. We are trying to work to make sure there is good alignment between what is happening at the national level and at the local level to try to enable projects. We have a good robust process in Ireland in which people have lots of opportunities to engage. There is the informal engagement stage and then, as we go through the formal planning process, there are appeal processes and the judicial review process. That is probably all proper and correct and it means we do not necessarily move as fast as the people developing projects would like move. However, it should give some confidence that we have a very robust process. Putting appropriate resources in place and making sure good, robust decisions take six months rather than 18 months are important improvements. However, there is an emergence of a misalignment between national policy and local policy in the area of wind power. This is an area that we in the storage sector would be keen to learn lessons from. I hope that answers the question on planning.

I can also speak briefly to the Deputy's question on regulation. In the storage space, I am not aware of existing regulation creating any impediments to the specific technologies I am working on.

I believe there is an appropriate process in place and very robust certification processes, and the technology providers are working through this. If others felt there was a need to introduce additional regulation to ensure the safety of the systems being installed, I do not think we would see people in the storage sector objecting to that. Through the lens I am looking at it and given the technologies we are looking at, I think it is robust. I will leave it to Mr. Smith to comment on the lithium-ion space.