Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for his opening statement. On the delivery of renewables, the pipeline and the trajectory, there is some concern based on recent analysis that we are not on target, or that we are not either connecting or getting enough projects to and through the planning process to deliver on the ambitious targets for 2030.

A recent example might relate to RESS 4 and the amount auctioned. There was 1.14 GW of wind and 925 GW of solar. The Minister will get the point.

Issues we are very familiar with are planning and trying to get through the planning process. There are plans to reform the planning system but there was a bottleneck at the back end of last year. We spoke about this before. There was some movement in this regard earlier this year but there seems to be a bottleneck again, based on the figures coming out, particularly for onshore wind energy.

With regard to connections, only 0.5 GW of wind and 0.8 GW of solar were granted planning permission last year. In 2023, only 0.6 W of new renewable energy capacity was added to the grid. It is a question of connections. When I meet people in the sector, they always point to planning issues and the grid. Addressing me, and I am sure the Minister, they always use the term "the drumbeat of actions". I am referring to regularly and consistently feeding projects into the pipeline at an early stage. Not all of them come to fruition. Could the Minister talk about the landscape? Coming to the end of the Dáil term, there is ambition, but how would he mark progress on the real delivery of renewables projects in the past 12 months and the barriers, which we all acknowledge exist? What are the barriers and how are they being addressed? Will it require greater delivery and heightened ambition in the remaining years to meet the targets for 2030?