Mr. Bobby Smith:

The Deputy asked whether there are any investment signals. There was a consultation at the end of last year and the perception of industry at that time was that there was momentum behind the policy. Our view is that momentum has shifted in more recent months and that is why we call this out today. Hopefully we can get that momentum back on track. We are engaging with the Department and we are also engaging with the CRU and EirGrid. The upcoming Government electricity storage policy framework, which is being developed by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, will be very important in giving a mandate to the relevant stakeholders to take this forward. There has been a lack of co-ordination between the different actors so far. This has led to some of the momentum we are seeing being shifted. Coming out with a strong statement that this is something that is going to happen and we want to put the necessary resources into it would be useful. Given that it is complex to design, we are not going to shy away from that. At the same time, there are countries that are doing it and we need to be fast followers in a sense. We do not want to lag behind too much but we realise this takes an appropriate amount of design work.

We are not necessarily calling out today that quarter 3 needs to be the deadline for this. If, however, a strong signal is given by quarter 3 that this is going to do be done and done right and that, let us say, over the next 12 months, this work will be put into it and a timetable will be offered on how this work will happen, that would give confidence to the industry that this is being looked at and that there will be something there for it to start developing projects around.

On the planning system, I might bring in Mr. Blount to talk about the specifics of different technologies.