Mr. Brian O'Mahony:

I apologise I do not have those figures to hand. Only a couple of months ago, we updated them based upon the 80% grant. We will provide them afterwards.

The second point is on solar. A further point to note is the issues that might constrain the deployment of that. People talk about our planning. The planning requirement is that up to 12 sq m can be installed on a roof, which covers most homes and provides at least a 2 kW system to people's houses, which is probably the appropriately sized system people want. Some people want larger ones than that, for which planning permission is required at present. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is looking at that but that change is requiring strategic environmental assessment to be carried out, which I understand is under way at present.

The other element is on the grid side. ESB Networks has done an analysis on that and people can deploy solar photovoltaic, PV, on residential properties without any issue. It has scaled up its administration side with regard to people applying for grid connections through the NC6 process, and that has happened already.

Connected to that, smart meter roll-out is progressing. In excess of 700,000 smart meters are deployed at this stage and the figure is growing year on year to support people who are interested in generating their own energy.