Mr. Kevin Brady:

I will address the second question on the 50-year perspective. The plan, as currently proposed, requires us to set out our objectives related to decarbonisation with a 50-year perspective. We are in a better position than most countries because we have a White Paper that sets out a vision for 2050, with 2030 being a milestone of that and 2100 being set down as the final target. Would we need to revisit the White Paper? We would certainly need to put our 50-year perspective into our national energy and climate plan. At the moment, our 50-year perspective is very much the 2100 decarbonisation point. It is still a proposal at this point.

The key reason I mention it is even though the national energy and climate plan covers the period to 2030, we are very much being asked for what are our strategies, objectives and projections beyond that.

There was a question on the Court of Justice of the European Union and discussions with our UK counterparts. There are a couple of points in this regard. The first is there will be no negotiation until Article 50 is triggered. Within that negotiation, Ireland will be part of the EU 27 so we do not envisage, even when Article 50 is triggered, that we will hop on a plane and go across to the UK. It is very much that we will be inputting to the EU 27 and their negotiations. The UK White Paper on exiting the European Union, EU, was very clear in a number of areas but it left open the potential for the UK to remain within the European framework on different elements. One of those may well be the internal energy market but we just do not know. Ireland would certainly be very supportive of that but how Britain would remain in that without the Court of Justice of the European Union is a key question. How that could be resolved and answered will be in the context of the EU 27 negotiations with the UK, as opposed to a bilateral discussion.