Professor Hannah Daly:

I will take the question on nuclear. We need to go to war with the army we have. The resources we have in Ireland are renewable resources. They are wind and solar. There is no, let us say, ideological objection to nuclear as a source of clean energy, but we need an energy source that can be scaled quickly, that is cost-effective and that is compatible with our existing power grid. The existing generation of nuclear does not comply with most of those conditions. Nuclear is very costly and would take many decades to construct here even if there was the political will to open up the question of it. We have more than enough offshore wind and, at certain times of the year, solar energy to meet our needs when these are complemented by stronger grid interconnection and long-duration energy storage. If energy storage was not scaling at the rate it is and reducing in cost, there might be a case to look at alternatives for backup. However, because the outlook for storage now is as positive as wind and solar has been for the past ten years, the outlook for being able to run the vast majority of our energy needs from wind and solar is very positive.