Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 15 November 2023
Select Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport
Estimates for Public Service 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Supplementary)
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I nominate Deputy Cathal Crowe.
Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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I second that.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan. It is lovely to see a young member of his family here today. I welcome the young man who has joined us in the room. I also welcome his officials.
No. 1 is consideration of 2023 Supplementary Estimates. The purpose of our meeting is to consider the Supplementary Estimate for public services, Vote 29 – Environment, Climate and Communications. I remind members that the committee has no role in actually approving the Estimates; rather, it is an ongoing opportunity for the committee to examine departmental expenditure to make the process more transparent and engage in a meaningful way on relevant performance issues.
I thank departmental officials for the briefing note provided. In the briefing note, they gave an explanation of the other programmes within Vote 29. This is for informational purposes only. I remind members that the select committee will only have within its limit considerations to changes in subhead D.
Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside of the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
For anyone watching this meeting, Oireachtas members and witnesses now have the option of being physically present in the committee room to join the meeting of the committee remotely via MS Teams. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member participating via MS Teams to confirm prior to contributing to the meeting that he or she is on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.
I call the Minister to make his opening statement.
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and the committee for this opportunity to present details of this Supplementary Estimate for my Department.
The Supplementary Estimate is required to provide the necessary funding of €926.606 million for the electricity costs emergency benefit scheme and €12 million for the business solar scheme, both in the energy transformation programme area.
The Supplementary Estimate will also reallocate €67.4 million in savings identified across the Department’s four programme areas to provide additional capital funding for the national broadband plan, NBP. This funding is required as the programme will exceed its planned delivery for the year. The additional activity is allowing the programme to continue to claw back in 2023 delays in roll-out in previous years. The reallocation for the NBP is possible due to savings identified under the following subheads: under programme A, climate action and environmental leadership, there was €600,000 in A4, environmental and climate research; and €3.1 million in A8, just transition. In programme B, energy transformation, there was €27.7 million in B4, residential-community retrofit programme; €700,000 in B6, other energy programmes; €10.6 million in B7, energy research programmes; and €2.3 million in B15, residential retrofit loan guarantee scheme. In programme C, circular economy development, there was €2.5 million in C4, GSI services; and €10.8 million in C6, waste management programme. Finally, in programme D, connectivity and communications delivery, there was €2.7 million in D4, other communications infrastructure; €3.5 million in D6, National Cyber Security Centre; and €2.9 million under D7, emergency alert system. The Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action will consider the reallocation of funding from programmes A, B and C, along with the additional funding for the electricity credit scheme and the business solar scheme, tomorrow.
The Covid-19 pandemic level 5 restrictions resulted in significant delays for National Broadband Ireland, NBI, in progressing the roll-out of the national broadband plan throughout the country. NBI has also faced further complexities working with existing networks, and these have also impacted progress. This includes challenges arising in rolling out fibre broadband in a rural environment, such as significant tree trimming to ensure cables can be placed on overhead poles and the remediation of ducting. To address this situation, a remedial plan was adopted in December 2022. Under this plan, NBI committed to delivering a cumulative target of 185,000 premises passed by the end of January 2024.
This year, NBI has endeavoured to make up some of the ground lost during the previous two years. This has resulted in the roll-out of the new high-speed fibre broadband network having been ramped up significantly, with roll-out being completed in an additional five deployment areas than originally provided for. A connection subsidy is required to fund an additional 14,000 connections, more than provided for in the original budget estimate.
At the end of October 2023, significant additional progress has been made, with NBI reporting that design is completed on more than 432,200 premises, more than 202,000 premises can now place an order or pre-order for connection through broadband service providers and in excess of 191,000 premises are passed and available for immediate connection. More than 58,300 premises have been connected, with NBI connecting approximately 3,500 homes monthly.
The Government and NBI agreed to accelerate the roll-out of high-speed broadband to some 672 schools across the State in the intervention area. This acceleration is on target to be completed by the end of 2023. This will ensure that all schools across the State will have the necessary infrastructure to carry out their critical day-to-day educational activities unimpeded by poor broadband. At the end of October 2023, the necessary infrastructure had been installed in 669 primary schools in the intervention area, with 29 installed by other operators, as agreed with the Department of Education, and the remaining instances installed by NBI. Along with the connected schools, 283 broadband connection points, BPCs, which are publicly accessible sites, have been installed, and the wireless high-speed broadband service has been switched on in these locations through service-provider contracts managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development.
In conclusion, the delivery of high-speed broadband for the people of Ireland is necessary for the continued economic and social development of this country, and the additional funding of €67.4 million furthers this delivery. I am happy to take questions from the members of the committee on any aspect of this additional capital funding requirement as it relates to the NBP. I thank the committee.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. I remind everyone that subhead D relates to the communications brief of our committee. Sometimes at these committee meetings, members go a bit broader with questions. I will leave it up to the Minister as to whether he wishes to pursue them. If we are going to go broad with questions, though, I ask that we not go too broad.
We have several members here in the committee room. I am listed as the first speaker, but I will forego this position so I can chair the meeting. I call Deputy Martin Kenny.
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister very much for his opening statement and the detail provided. It is welcome on one level to see the NBP is progressing, and doing so at some pace. We still, however, get many people around the country very frustrated at the issues they are encountering. Everybody's individual issue is important to them. We also have businesses around the country, especially in rural areas, that have serious problems getting connectivity.
Sometimes they have seen the vans and the survey has been done. People have been observed out with monitors along the road and looking up at poles, and the residents and businesses think something is going to happen. Years go by and nothing arrives. I hope this additional funding will go some way towards bringing a conclusion to these issues because many people are really frustrated with this situation, particularly in rural areas. I hope we can see some development in this regard.
I would, however, just like to look a little at where this money is moving from. This is one of the issues. Particularly concerning is the fact that so much money is moving out of programme B, energy transformation. Almost €28 million was unspent in the residential community retrofit programme while almost €2.3 million remains unspent under energy research and residential retrofit. All these areas impact large numbers of people and businesses around the country wishing to get some bit of assistance with retrofitting, and insulation is the big aspect in this regard, and other facilities. They are on long waiting lists and finding it difficult to access the funding. Those most in need of funding living in the colder homes sometimes find with the existing funding streams that they cannot make any progress because they do not have the matching funding required and cannot get loans for this type of work. The result is that these people are in serious difficulty now. There needs to be a re-examination of this funding, and I would welcome the Minister's comments, positive ones hopefully, in respect of whether something can be done to broaden it out to ensure those people in the most need can access it.
I would also like to understand why the National Cyber Security Centre had underspending of €3.5 million. Again, this is an area where we have had major problems that have cost the State significant money in regard to cyberattacks.
I would like to understand how there can be such large overspends in some of the particular programmes that are set out here. If the Minister were able to enlighten us on some of that, I would be grateful.
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Deputy is right that it can be very frustrating. Broadband is a lifeline for many people, businesses and communities. The purpose of this is to cover the whole country, particularly the hard-to-get-to areas. We will also have to focus on a number of urban areas. As the national broadband plan is being delivered, we will have to design mechanisms to ensure we get to some pockets of urban areas. We are going as fast as we can and this Supplementary Estimate will help us to go faster. It is working in every way. Like any big infrastructural project, this started with getting permission from local authorities, the trimming of trees and that sort of stuff and overcoming problems with ducting. The Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest problem because we could not get contractors in and out. The problems are all being overcome, which is a sign of real progress and success. We will roll out broadband as fast as we can. I absolutely accept what the Deputy said. For those still waiting, it is a long wait. This should be good news because it is accelerating delivery.
With regard to where the money is coming from, the Deputy is right that it comes from a variety of areas across the Department. The Department now has a €1 billion spend, which is almost double its allocation three years ago. Some areas are ahead and others are behind. In this instance, we are ahead on broadband and we are going to pay for it through a number of areas. I take the Deputy's point about the energy retrofit and transformation programme being equally important. I do not think the underspend in that area is a sign of a lack of progress. In truth, approximately one third of the €1 billion pot is being spent on the energy retrofit. It is demand-led. There have been some slight delays. The rolling out of some of the one-stop shops was slightly slower than we expected a year ago, but it is working. I met some of the providers at the weekend and they told me their order books are full. They are confident that will expand. We are ahead of the broadband targets and it is the same story with respect to retrofitting. We are doing more houses than we expected in the climate plan. The new low-cost loans that will kick in next February will help to make it viable for households to do the work. It is only going one way, which is further up.
The benefit we have in one way is that we know in the budget process that we will get increased revenue every year because the carbon tax revenue keeps coming in. That increase allows us to send a signal to industry and tell it to keep going and scale up because a bigger budget is coming each year.
The National Cyber Security Centre saw slightly reduced expenditure on the interim facility. We are moving to new headquarters in Beggar's Bush early next year. It was to happen in December but will probably happen in January. The centre will have a top, state-of-the-art and secure facility there. We had them in an interim facility near Thomas Street. With respect to the budget, there was a slightly lower cost for the fit-out than was originally expected. Any shortfall there is not materially affecting operations.
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Has it enough staff to do the work it needs to do?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It has seen a significant increase staff. There is no restriction whatsoever on its ability to employ new staff. The lesson learned, in particular from the hack on the HSE, was that this is an area in which we have to ensure we are protected as well as possible. The National Cyber Security Centre is on track to meet its staff recruitment targets and there are no restrictions whatsoever in that regard.
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I will go back to retrofitting. I spoke recently to a person who works with one of those contractors. I asked him about the types of houses they are working in. He confirmed something that I suspected and which really goes to the core of this issue. He felt it was reasonably well-off people who were getting retrofitting done. Such people had access to money. They would be able to get access to a loan and manage it. He pointed out that the people in poorer, and probably colder, houses cannot do that. They feel they are frozen out of it, if the Minister will pardon the pun. He pointed out that one house he went to already had solar panels installed a number of years ago. They were clearly people who had that particular agenda in mind. That is wonderful, but they could clearly afford to do it.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should keep within the-----
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I understand. This is an area in which there has been an underspend. I am bringing to the Minister's attention that part of the reason for that underspend is that the people who most need the assistance are those who cannot afford to avail of these schemes. The scheme needs to be readjusted in order to ensure we are not back here and considering further underspends in the future. I take the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach's point that it is not exactly on the track we are travelling but we need to take the opportunities when the Minister is before the committee to bring his attention to as many areas as possible about which our constituents and the broader public are concerned.
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I accept the Deputy's point. I would make the point that more than half of the public funding coming from carbon tax goes to those on the lowest incomes who cannot afford anything. We provide 100% grants through the likes of the warmer homes scheme for those in social housing. There is €85 million available this year. I accept the Deputy's point but we direct public money towards those least able to pay. There will be a game-changer in February when those who might not have the cash but do not qualify for low-income zero-cost retrofits will be able to avail of a low-cost loan, the first of its kind in Europe, to help them to access the grants. That will be a game-changer when it is rolled out in February.
Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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I thank the Minister. I have two relatively quick questions. On the increase in costs for the national broadband roll-out, it is great that more work is being done and the catch-up is taking place. How much of the need for an extra spend is the result of more work being done and how much is the result of inflationary costs? Does that question make sense? With inflationary costs for construction, are we expecting a need to allocate more than the Minister initially thought he would? Is he making provision for that?
On the National Cyber Security Centre, I require further clarification. The €3.5 million underspend is not impacting the ability to hire staff or the operation of it, which is welcome. Did the Minister say that money is coming from savings in terms of fit-out costs for Beggar's Bush or Thomas Street, or a combination of both? Is there any extra detail in that regard? Those are my only two questions.
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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On that last point, it was the lower-than-expected fit-out of the interim facility and not the new one. The Office of Public Works, OPW, took up more of the cost than we thought. It was not material to inflation.
On the first point, I am told that the increase is not due to inflation but is due to increased numbers. An example of that is that the target had been 185,000 houses by the end of 2023. We have already passed that target with two and a half months to go until the deadline. It is interesting to talk to other companies involved in similar large infrastructural projects, particularly telecoms projects. When you are dealing in hundreds of thousands of houses, once you get it down to a modular, standardised system, you can pick up the pace. The first year or two is always tricky as you iron out all the wrinkles. That is what is happening and that is why we are able to get to more houses. The demand is also higher than expected. There are some 60,000 additional houses involved. That helps. Everyone has an incentive. The national broadband company has a similar incentive. The more houses it can connect, the better it is for its business plan and the lower the cost for the State. It is a win-win situation. Going faster works for everyone.
Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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I thank the Minister. That is all I have to ask.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I see Deputy O'Rourke is online. Does he wish to contribute? While we are waiting for him, I might come in with a few questions. I thank the Minister for being here at our select committee meeting. I also thank him for his opening statement. I have a few small questions. It is great to hear that progress is being made on rural broadband. I am seeing that progress in my own locality.
NBI has been good to brief this committee. It has been good for on-the-ground briefings. In County Clare, it allowed Oireachtas representatives to shadow it for half a day. We got to see the complexities, as well as some of the easier stuff it is doing. It was informative. It has always been the case that the roll-out of broadband is intertwined with the roll-out of eircodes. Will the Minister comment on that? Are there still challenges in that regard between his Department and NBI, or have they been overcome?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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There are none that I am aware of. The eircode system is now well embedded. It is almost ten years since it was first introduced. I understand there may have been some slow turnaround in terms of new properties getting eircodes, but none have been brought to my attention. If the Deputy has any examples I will be happy to follow them up.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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As broadband is rolled out they generally take the path of least resistance. They are certainly still cabling over ground a lot in rural areas, which makes sense as it is quick. I can think of some instances down home where they will go the easy route to get connected quickly. However, in urban areas I think it is a standard from the Minister's Department that they will try to duct and cable into places. That position might be reiterated again by the Minister. In suburban areas - and they may have been victims of their success making progress - we are in some cases starting to see some over ground cabling when it is unnecessary.
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Is this related to the NBP?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I agree that ducting is preferable. It is less susceptible to storms. A lot of fibre was brought down earlier in the week by Storm Debi. There are advantages to ducting, but there can be disadvantages. One reason there was a difficulty ramping up in early days was that some of the ducting quality was not as good as originally expected. It might be blocked and not as accessible as originally planned. The reason we are accelerating is NBI and Eir are working together to remedy those problems when they arise. This is a good example of how, for this to work, collaboration is needed between Eir, the national broadband plan and the local authorities. They are, to be honest, best placed to make the call about the right technical solution. Part of that should not just be cost, but security with regard to not presenting other difficulties down the line like storms or other elements. That has to be decided at a local level.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I turn to the realm of cybersecurity. It is good that progress is being made on the National Cyber Security Centre with an operational window for full opening of spring 2024. The last time this came up before the committee, we spoke about a certain amount of cybercrime is domestic in origin. There was the infamous attack on the HSE systems, which came from overseas. How much collaboration is there between the Department, its counterparts overseas, and other Departments? Within the European Union we should surely be leaning on big brother, the European Union mothership. We saw during the Covid epidemic how well we were able to work with other health departments and ministries overseas. It should surely be the same with cybercrime. We should be trying to work on a collaborative competency to be more robust. Having our own agency is important, but it is quite minor in comparison with what France and Germany would have. How much collaboration is there on a pan-European basis?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We do pan-European with other agencies. Part of the role of the National Cyber Security Centre is to get the latest information from other experts in the area and to share analysis, the patches and solutions. It is collaborative by nature when it comes to working with other agencies with expertise in the area. The Deputy is correct that this is a defence issue, as well as a commercial one. It is a real risk to a whole variety of operators - not just the State, but its agencies and other large operators of critical and other infrastructure. The role of the National Cyber Security Centre is to share that information on a needs be basis. It has to be confidential in how it goes about its work, but it is engaged in sharing that analysis with other relevant agencies in the EU and beyond, so we have the latest analysis and information to help protect our people.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Communications are colocated on high infrastructure. I refer specifically to mobile phone and signal antennae colocated on wind turbines. I do not know if the Minister is willing to answer this, as I am broadening the debate out a little. The new guidelines for wind energy are relevant to colocated infrastructure. This goes back well before the Minister's Department. I think it was at one point with the Minister for housing and planning. I have heard in recent months they have been on Deputy Ryan's departmental desk. That new set of guidelines was to come before the Dáil in December 2019. There was then the Christmas break, followed straight away by a general election and the Covid pandemic. A lot has happened since. People, the communications industry, communities concerned about turbines, and I am sure the wind energy sector would like to know what is happening. These guidelines are 15 years out of date at this stage. Even the 2019 guidelines are possibly outdated. However, they are relevant to communities and to the sector. Where is this document at? Is it on the Minister's desk or another Minister's desk? When will there be movement on it?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It is on my desk and on those of the Minister and Ministers of State within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Those guidelines will be in place quickly. They have been a long time coming. It is because, as we saw it, there was a fundamental difficulty with some of the new proposed guidelines. We saw they were not actually enforceable. We had to look again and come back with something that could be predicted and function well. We are close to concluding that. I will be honest and say I do not have the detail of what they say about mobile phone antennae on turbines. I will check that as we get ready to sign off on them. Between ourselves, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien and Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, we will do that in coming weeks.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That document was in its final state for ratification by the Dáil in December 2019. We are now almost four years on from that.
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I welcome the committee's involvement in that. As soon as we have them cleared through Government, I will be happy to facilitate whatever work the committee wants to do.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for being late as I had commitments in the Dáil Chamber. I have questions from the two ends of this transaction. The first concerns the roll-out of the NBP. In fairness to National Broadband Ireland, it is clear with its information. We had extensive engagement with the company over the Covid period at this committee. It has good interfaces on its website for members and others. However, it is slow progress. In my county, there have been 886 connections. There are more homes passed than that, but that is 886 connections out of 22,000. We need a significant ramp-up. Whatever way it is cut up, it is a significant backloading of works. I am interested in the impact of this transaction on that work programme. There was also a five-year delay, out to seven years, which they were trying to rein back in and shave some time off the back end of the NBP.
Is there any prospect of doing that?
Specifically there is the reallocation of funds, on areas that I would see as really important: A8 - just transition is €3.1 million; D7 - the emergency alert system, €2.9 million; and C6 - waste management programmes is €10.8 million. Tomorrow, the climate committee will deal with the welcome energy credit and the funding for that but many people who are getting that energy credit will have the heat going through their roofs and out their walls because they have not been retrofitted and their homes are not well insulated. Last week, the Committee on Public Accounts heard about a very significant underspend in retrofitting. Here we can find €27.7 million in residential and community retrofit. Can the Minister reflect on what is happening in that space? I think we all know the work is desperately needed and there is huge public demand. The Minister has heard from Deputy Kenny and myself repeatedly on scheme design. How do we find ourselves in a situation where we can be in a position to reallocate funds of that scale? What under-assessment was made? Why is it that we are not in a position to deliver on committed expenditure?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The answer is in the point the Deputy makes. It is projects of scale. The departmental budget is scaling up. It has seen dramatic year-on-year increases. It has almost doubled the last three years. I mentioned a figure earlier. On the timelines, if you focus on a particular calendar year, there will be variations and some projects will overspend and others underspend. Take retrofitting, as I said earlier, the overall spend is something like one third of a billion euro and €27 million is about 7% or 8%. It is largely a timing issue. The money will be spent. The projects are there but they are just part of a pipeline where they are coming through. Similarly, waste management is probably the second largest example. There are often very large remediation projects that are somewhat lumpy in basis, such as to remedy historic landfill sites. Many of our projects are subject to permitting, planning and regulatory approval. Time lines are not exact and it does not all fit within a yearly structure. There is no lack of ambition to deliver on the various different programmes. It is similarly the case with just transition, to deal with some of the areas the Deputy mentioned. There was a €12 million Estimate spend and of that, there was €3 million where we found that individual projects could not proceed. I am talking about a large number of projects for which there may have been difficulty getting matching funding, European approval or a variety of other technical reasons. Yes, you would prefer to spend every single penny of every budget but the reality is that a €1 billion programme will have underspends and overspends. What we are doing today is balancing between the two. Next year, it could well come back the other way where demand-led programmes in the energy side exceed what we are doing. On both broadband and energy, which are the two key areas in term of the viring across of the transfer of funds, both are ahead of target so we are not falling back on that. They are ahead of target in terms of delivery of retrofits. We are not falling back on that. It is just ahead of target in terms of delivery of retrofits. When I talk to the industry, with the new low-cost loans coming in in February, we are expecting further growth here. That is the underlying trend.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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We have seen the devastating impact of floods. International counterparts have emergency alert systems in place. What is the current state of affairs on the emergency alert system?
Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We will introduce a scheme using text messages to allow us to provide that facility. Again, it took longer than I would have liked. It was a legislative change. We originally hoped to do it through secondary legislation. The Attorney General advised, as I recall, that in fact it would require primary legislation so it took longer with the drafting of the legislation. Our system does need to speed up, that is our legal system and our drafting system. That is not a criticism of any one individual or anything but the time it takes on the legislative side can be a reason why we are behind and that is the primary reason in this case.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Does Deputy Kenny want to come in again?
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Just going back to retrofitting and the brief conversation we were having, I totally accept that great work is being done and particularly for people in local authority houses and so on. Many have schemes in place for that. However, there are a bunch of people, which I think is the majority, who are in the middle. They are people who are not in local authority houses. They are working and paying-----
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I think we are going into another committee’s work here.
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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They really need the funding to be able to carry out schemes and they are the ones who cannot get it. We see underspend here and last week the Committee on Public Accounts heard about the amount of money that was underspent, and it is really frustrating for those people. They are the people who are talking to us, and I am sure they are talking to the Acting Chair as well, who would love to be able to retrofit their homes or put in the insulation but the scheme simply does not fit their circumstances. We need to develop schemes which fit the circumstances of the people most in need. That is the difficulty.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is a point well made. These Estimates come before the environment committee tomorrow on headings A, B and C. The Deputy has made the point well.
As no other members are online, we are done with this. The Minister will be before the committee again on 28 November to deal with the transport aspects of the Estimates. I thank the Minister and his officials for attending today and engaging with the committee.