Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Obviously, we want to go where we can make the easiest gains, but sometimes there are other issues we have to take into account. One of the measures we could possibly take is targeting certain areas in the country. For example, for a variety of reasons, there may well be a case, in retrofitting social housing or supporting the private sector, to look at rural Ireland first. If something is being done in a rural area, we know that we can put up a worker, whereas in Dublin it is very difficult to find accommodation for someone. This might be beneficial because we will want to protect rural communities if carbon prices increase. There are, however, other circumstances and factors that we have to take into account. If we were to just go with cost abatement curves, we would sometimes miss the social priorities we would have to apply. Obviously, we have to look at cost abatement curves, but being explicit on having a needs assessment for just that one category would restrict us in the social and other priorities we might want to apply to investment.