Mr. Paddy Phelan:

To return to Deputy Cronin's question, in terms of the forum, as we mentioned, Renewable Energy Ireland is working with fora across electricity, heat and transport under the chair of Dr. Tanya Harrington. There is a forum there which provides a route to, if you like, unsiloed activity. Much more work can be done to streamline that and ensure the age-old issue of technologies competing does not arise. It goes back to the words often used to describe this, namely, "mosaic" and "stained glass window". There are many different scales and sizes to deliver this energy transition by 2030.

On Deputy Devlin's question on gas resources post 2030, wearing my energy agency hat, I would point out we have done resource assessments in the south east on potential biogas and biomethane and we seem to be jumping out over that, as it were. In the assessments we have undertaken from research on demand and potential bioenergy in that space, we have found green gas provides both dispatchable and storage solutions similar to hydrogen. People would be amazed by the potential energy that sits there if that industry was supported to produce green gas on foot of local employment in rural areas and inject it or move to a virtual network. There are some interesting projects on that. This area has been overlooked for a long time. That is a potential onshore resource to add to the intention of Gas Networks Ireland of having 20% renewable gas in its system by 2030. We should not forget about the potential for biogas. Europe recently pointed to it as having a strong potential to decarbonise and also for producing organic fertilisers and, subsequently, supplying some storage as well.

On the issue of consumer price reduction, we all agree that auctions and markets have indicated for a long time the cost of energy reducing, particularly electricity, but obviously that is all changed in terms of security. To follow on from EirGrid's comments on making sure everything arrives at the right time, be it through generation, storage, transmission distribution and distributed demand-side reduction, both in terms of energy efficiency and integrated renewables, in those circumstances, the market should stay stable. I echo Mr. Foley’s comments about being able to do that because everything needs to arrive at the right time. However, if there were any slips or trips along the road, we will see price increases in auctions.