Ms Marie Donnelly:

I will try to respond to those questions. If I leave something out, I ask the Senator to tell me.

He mentioned the issue of energy efficiency. Arguably, it is as important as the phase-out and elimination of fossil fuels. Ireland has a target for 2030 to achieve in terms of energy efficiency, and this is a target in legislation that Ireland has agreed to along with other member states. We are currently in excess of that target by 20%, and this is 2025, so the direction of travel on energy efficiency is a very challenging route that we have to follow and take. Of course, as they say, the energy we do not use is the cheapest and the most sustainable energy we have. We really face a challenge in that regard. Yes, we have an issue with the data centres, but it is not just data centres. The amount of energy being used in the country in terms of final energy is going up every single year and it is costing the country not just in emissions but also in terms of money. The Deputy is absolutely right to point to energy efficiency. Demand reduction is a key element because the lower the energy consumption the easier it is to achieve the targets in our carbon budgets 3 and 4.

One of the areas we deliberately did not put a great deal of emphasis on in the proposal was some of the new technologies that have been relied on in other parts of the world. The Senator refers to carbon capture and storage. Carbon capture and storage requires quite a bit of technology. It increases the costs of operation of those who capture the carbon and ultimately send it for storage. Then it requires an ongoing cost ad infinitum for its storage. Geographically speaking, we are not well served in Ireland with suitable cavern-type areas where we could store carbon dioxide, which probably would mean that we would have to pipe it to the coast and send it in a ship to somewhere, for example, off Norway. It is theoretically possible, possibly even technically possible, but on the current analysis very expensive. It has not actually been operated in any-----