Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 October 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy

Climate Change Targets 2026-2030: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Ian Talbot:

We have a very indigenous mindset. We have 36 affiliated chambers that are on the ground with those businesses, including FDI companies in their areas. That is where we spend a lot of time on things like, for example Mr. Minogue mentioned the PR6 process. We have made sure we have put in submissions in there reflecting what we need around the country.

On the PR6 process, contextually I find the terminology a bit funny because we talk about it as a price review. The context tends to be the impact on people's bills, which I understand, but ultimately it is the investment for the grid. We need to start talking more and sensitising people of the importance of developing that grid so that everyone has the electricity they need, not just businesses but also consumers. These bills impact the cost of living as well, which we are very concerned about.

The issue we have here is that for too long we have not done enough, whether it be housing, infrastructure building or so on, but we have to. In the scheme of the things, we have a relatively small population even within the European Union. We can do this, but we need to get better at delivery. That is what we are focused on. We do not want to be turning people away no matter what they do. When it comes to things like the data centres that the Deputy referenced, we have to look at the surge in how we are all using technologies. We are all now using ChatGPT that we were not using one or two years ago. That has a huge impact-----

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