Ms Marie Donnelly:

On just transition, specifically the case of Bord na Móna, a member of the Climate Change Advisory Council was very closely involved in that process, so we were briefed on some of what happened. It is the first really big experience in Ireland and the first lesson that the council took from that is honesty. The situation with Bord na Móna should not have come as a surprise to anybody. The timing was faster than some of the rhetoric had been. However, honesty is the key issue here. It has been known for many years that continuing to produce electricity from peat was contradictory to our climate policies. That was known. The extent to which honesty came into play, in terms of telling both the workers and management of the company about the reality of that and providing them with alternatives early enough, is perhaps the single lesson that must be taken from that. We need to be honest.

We cannot hide these things or shy away from them. In being honest, we need to put the measures in place that will support people.

The Bord na Móna case is an illustration of why we need to do it that way and how we can best do so and get it right, because similar situations, which may not be as large, will come up again in which fossil-fuel based activities will be negatively impacted by this transition. We need to be honest with workers, their families and their communities about the long-term trend in order that they can prepare themselves and find alternative sources of income, activities and jobs.

On meat production, one of the interesting aspects, which is shown on some of the slides linked to our technical report, is we looked at where the beef industry is located in Ireland. The Deputy is right that the dairy industry is very much to the south and west, and the beef industry is west and east but in the top half of the country. It is not exclusively located there, of course, but a large portion of it is.

The Deputy is also right to say that we have many small farmers who are in beef production. Many of them do not make any money from that activity. This again comes from the Teagasc figures from the farm surveys it does every year. The issue we need to deal with in this context is income streams for farmers. Farmers need to be able to run their farms in a way that is profitable for them, their families and, ultimately, their communities, that is consistent with our climate action and that allows them to be innovative in the environment in which they find themselves.

For some of the small beef farmers who currently do not make money from beef and are surviving from Pillar 1 payments coming out of CAP, we should be looking at how we support them into income streams that are more beneficial for them. That is part of some of the initiatives Teagasc has mentioned in its listing of things going forward. I will not make comments on the structure of the industry, because the council has not discussed that in any detail.

When we look at the question of the double metrics of energy efficiency and emissions reductions, we can see that there is a challenge. There has been much discussion about data centres and many fingers have been pointed at data centres in terms of why we had amber alerts. We had those alerts this year because two gas-fired power stations were out of action. This meant that we did not have the back up we would normally have had from those two stations.

We are moving forward to a very high level of renewable energy, which is a variable power source with stability and frequency challenges for the grid. When I look at other countries that have an 80% target for 2030, such as Portugal, Austria and Denmark, all of those are interconnected with large energy markets which provide balancing services to the grid. We do not have that.

We have, basically, the east-west interconnector the UK. Greenlink is potentially coming on stream and, ultimately, we will have the Celtic interconnector. We have connections with the North of Ireland, one of which has still not been built. We do not have sufficient balancing support from outside of the island for the volume of renewable power planned in this process.

We need to develop our technology and capacity to mains stability in the grid over the decade in order that we can achieve it. The system non-synchronous penetration, SNSP, needs to move from 75% to 90%. and even higher, in order to make it possible to have that level of renewable power in our grid. That is why the gas-fired powered stations are being proposed. It is stability of the grid. Yes, we have a volume increase. We have that increase because our economy, fortunately, is doing very well. Our population is growing and we have data centres that will consume more energy. However, it is not only data centres. We predict a 20% increase in population between now and 2040. I hope our economy will continue to do well, which is also likely to require electricity. We are moving heating and transport into electricity. Electricity demand will go up over the period, but we are at the forefront in respect of coping with the stability of the grid with renewable energy. When we get it right and we will get it right, we will be the living lab for the rest of the world, as to how to integrate renewable power into the electricity system. This is a short-term fix for the technology gap we have, which needs to be plugged at this time.

The issue with forestry is that private planting rates have fallen off. Part of why I say the policy needs to be addressed is because the incentives for farmers and landowners to invest in forestry are obviously not working and need to be adjusted to make it attractive. It is a source of carbon farming for farmers, but they need to get the income stream and the reward out of it. They also need the incentives and structures in place that will allow them to devote parts of their land to forestry development over the period. This is one of the issues that has been identified in the climate action plan, but the new policy is only foreseen for 2023. Perhaps that could be enhanced in the context of timing.