Mr. Jim Gannon:

I would only add that we are in a position where we are in a transition not just to 2050, but to 2030 as well. A transition is not binary. It is going to take time. As Mr. McEvilly also articulated, what we are trying to do is to balance the short- to medium-term need for natural gas as we transition to a full net decarbonised suite and energy system for both our heat and our electricity services that we use. There are a couple of examples from the past year. The deployment of short-run battery storage, in particular, has gone quite well. The market is almost saturated in that regard in the services required. We are now looking at the incentives being provided for those longer-run batteries that can provide that peak cover. If they provide that peak cover, then they can be charged by different sources overnight and can again provide peak cover during the day. That way, we can start to displace and chew away at that need for fossil fuel back-up, even at that stage. In terms of system services, similarly, last March the same committee, which is comprises CRU Ireland, the utilities regulator and independent members, asked the system operators, SONI and EirGrid, to start exploring, and in fact pursuing, lower carbon system service providers. This involves looking at synchronous condensers, which are low-carbon alternatives to using overnight combined cycle gas turbines, CCGTs, or open cycle gas turbines, OCGTs, that require fossil-fired plants to provide that service. Again, the drive is there on a number of these different tracks to move to a more decarbonised and net-zero carbon as soon as we can, but there is that short- to medium-term challenge. Against that challenge, there are no more licences coming for offshore oil and gas exploration. The Corrib gas field, which was domestic, was at least providing us with gas that was travelling less of a distance in terms of carbon emissions. It was providing us with between 60% and 75% of our domestic gas demand at different stages. That is down to approximately 25% now and, therefore, the dependence on the interconnectors to the UK has increased. I think because that dependence has increased, there is a need to keep open a discussion and dialogue around the alternatives that might be there and to perhaps look to examples and alternatives. The German Government recently said it needed to deploy more LNG. Uniper, the utility in Germany, stated that if it is going to do that, it will design it for hydrogen but will ensure it is able to facilitate LNG in the meantime. We need to start asking ourselves the question of whether these needs are mutually exclusive and if we can find some goal alignment between the two, with a view to bringing them together. If there are engineering ways to do it, we should try to find economic ways of doing it, and accelerate down that pathway.