Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 21 May 2026
Public Accounts Committee
Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts 2024
Vote 29 – Environment, Climate and Communications
Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2024
Chapter 12 – Progress Towards Achieving Climate Neutrality in Ireland
Chapter 13 – Clearing of the Carbon Fund
Chapter 23 – Receipts from the Capping of Electricity Sales Revenues
Market Cap Fund – Financial Statements 2024
Climate Action Fund – Financial Statements 2024
2:00 am
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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This morning, we will engage with the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment to examine the appropriation accounts for 2024 – Vote 29; the Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2024 – chapters 12, 13 and 23; the Market Cap Fund; and the Climate Action Fund.
On behalf of the committee, I welcome officials from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment: Ms Oonagh Buckley, Secretary General; Mr. Barry Quinlan, assistant secretary general; Mr. Brian Carroll, assistant secretary general; Mr. Paul Bolger, assistant secretary general; and Mr. Jim Whelan, principal officer. From the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, I welcome Mr. Fergal Mulligan, chairperson; Mr. John Melvin, director of security of supply and wholesale; and Mr. Fergus O'Toole, active customer and smart metering manager. We are also joined by officials who are attending in a representative capacity: Mr. Tom McCormack, financial and commercial leave in the digital connectivity office at the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, and Mr. Eoin Dormer, principal officer at the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. We are also joined by officials from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, including the Comptroller and Auditor General himself, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee, and Mr. Mark Brady, deputy director of audit. They are all very welcome here this morning.
Before we begin, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege, and the practice of the Houses as regards reference witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses who are physically present or give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. This means that they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure it is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Witnesses are also 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.
I now call on the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, to make his opening statement.
Mr. Seamus McCarthy:
The appropriation account for Vote 29, Environment, Climate and Communications, records total expenditure of €1.734 billion in 2024. The expenditure is accounted for under four programmes.
The programme for climate action and environment leadership involved expenditure of just under €128 million, including grant support for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Expenditure under the energy transformation programme amounted to just over €1 billion, mainly comprising €520 million spent on the temporary electricity credit scheme, €457 million on Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, energy schemes and research, and a grant of €29 million in respect of the SEAI's administration costs.
One hundred million euro was spent on the circular economy development programme, which encompasses waste management, the Geological Survey of Ireland, grant support for Inland Fisheries Ireland and for the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, which had its first year of operation in 2024.
Expenditure on the connectivity and communications programme in 2024 was €467 million. Four hundred and ten million euro of this related to expenditure on the national broadband plan. The communications programme transferred out of Vote 29, reflecting changes in departmental responsibilities following Government formation in 2025.
I certified the 2024 appropriation account on 18 September 2025 and issued a clear audit opinion. The audit report draws attention to two matters disclosed in the account. Note 6.5 discloses the payment to the European Commission in 2024 of a fine of €4.5 million arising from the late transposition into Irish law of the 2018 European electronic communications code directive. The legislation required to give effect to the transposition was only completed in November 2023, almost three years after the transposition deadline, and after the Commission had commenced infringement proceedings against Ireland in the European Court of Justice.
The Accounting Officer has also disclosed in the statement on internal financial control that the Department was not compliant with national procurement rules in respect of contracts to the value of €527,000 that operated in 2024.
The statutory Climate Action Fund was established with effect from 1 August 2020 to receive and ring-fence funds to support schemes and projects that contribute to the achievement of Ireland's climate and energy targets, including in regions and sectors impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy. The fund's income in 2024 comprised €100 million transferred from the National Oil Reserves Agency levy and €549,000 in receipts to offset the greenhouse gas emissions associated with air travel undertaken by staff of Government Departments and offices.
The expenditure from the Climate Action Fund in 2024 was €99.4 million, up significantly from the €23 million spent in 2023. This comprised €57.7 million transferred for the SEAI's public sector efficiency programme, €16.9 million for a Bord na Móna bog rehabilitation scheme, just under €10 million for a schools' photovoltaic panel programme and around €15 million on other climate-related schemes. A slow roll-out of climate action schemes has resulted in accumulated reserves totalling €275 million in the fund as at the end of 2024.
The establishment of the Market Cap Fund was one of a number of measures introduced in response to rapidly rising energy prices following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The legislation setting up the fund allowed for a temporary levy on electricity suppliers in respect of revenues in excess of capped amounts from the sale of electricity in the period beginning on 1 December 2022 and ending on 30 June 2023. The application of the resources of the fund is statutorily at the discretion of the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment.
Electricity suppliers were required to make returns to the CRU with their own assessments of the payment due. EirGrid is responsible for maintaining the fund, keeping proper accounts and submitting them to me for audit. The legislation setting up the fund did not create a formal accountability role for the financial statements, so the Secretary General of the Department assumed that responsibility.
In summary, returns were made by 236 electricity suppliers, and receipts for the period of account 2023–24 totalled €188.9 million. There was no expenditure from the fund in the period of account, and the balance in the fund stood at €190 million at the end of September 2024. By the time I reported in September 2025, just €3.9 million had been issued from the fund in respect of an SEAI scheme that grants aid towards installing photovoltaic systems for non-domestic entities.
Chapter 12 of my Report on the Accounts of the Public Services for 2024 reviews the progress made towards achieving climate neutrality targets in Ireland. Current projections indicate that even with the implementation of planned additional measures, greenhouse gas emissions are expected to exceed national and EU targets set for 2030. It is therefore likely that the Exchequer will face significant financial liabilities and compliance-related costs.
The value of these costs is highly uncertain, with estimates ranging from €3 billion to €26 billion. Responsibility for delivering the national climate objective spans several Departments of Government, and it remains unclear which Votes will ultimately bear the cost of the expected failure to achieve the agreed targets.
The final report before the committee this morning explains the reasons for the cancellation of carbon credits acquired in anticipation of a failure to meet climate targets up to 2020, arising from the Kyoto Agreement. The carbon fund was established in 2007 to record carbon credit transactions. The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment is responsible for decisions to purchase carbon units as and when required. The NTMA manages the fund and is the designated purchasing agent on behalf of the State. Through the fund, the State spent a net €118 million in acquiring almost 12 million credits. As a result of restrictions introduced under a 2009 EU effort-sharing decision, Ireland was unable to use 702,000 of those credits. The carbon fund has effectively been dormant since 2022, with no assets other than the 702,000 unusable carbon credits, carried at nil value. As a result, the cost of acquiring the credits has effectively been written off. Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Thanks for that, Mr. McCarthy. I ask the Secretary General to deliver the opening statement on behalf of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment. As set out in the letter of invitation, she has five minutes to make her opening statement.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I thank the Chairman and thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. I am accompanied by assistant secretaries Barry Quinlan, Brian Carroll, Paul Bolger and Lisa Keyes and by the Department's head of finance, Jim Whelan. I look forward to engaging with the committee on the Department's 2024 appropriation account and the chapters highlighted by the committee in its invitation. At the outset, I would like to draw the committee's attention to the fact that the 2024 appropriation account contains details of functions that, following the transfer of functions on the formation of the last Government, no longer rest with the Department, namely, telecommunications and cybersecurity. Accordingly, while I can speak to expenditure in 2024, I am not in a position to discuss more recent matters in this area. I am glad that my former colleague, Tom McCormack, has joined us. He may be able to answer to more recent queries on communications.
During 2024 the total gross expenditure under the Vote amounted to €1.734 billion. This was €37 million or 2% below the revised gross budgetary allocation, including capital carryover, of €2.670 billion. In October 2024, the Department received a Supplementary Estimate of an additional €553 million comprising €520 million for the fourth electricity credit €30 million to meet the Minister's contractual obligations under the national broadband plan and €3 million to support the HSE pilot energy and decarbonisation pathfinder project. The Supplementary Estimate also provided for the transfer of €440,000 from subhead A8, just transition fund - Ireland and EU, to a newly created subhead A11, just transition fund, to repay to the European Commission pre-financing received as part of the EU just transition fund.
The spend of €1.039 billion under the Department's energy transformation programme reflected the continued focus on energy affordability as a result of rising international energy prices and the knock-on effect for domestic customers. As part of the Government's response to the resulting cost-of-living crisis, €520 million was provided for the electricity costs emergency benefit scheme. Over €421 million in capital funding was spent on residential and community retrofit programmes in 2024, up 30% on 2023. This supported 53,984 home energy upgrades, up 13% on 2023. Of these, 7,743 homes were delivered under the fully funded warmer homes scheme for households at risk of energy poverty, an increase of 31% on 2023. Including approved housing body-owned properties, 54% of the total expenditure was on upgrades in households at risk of energy poverty. Overall, 21,817 homes achieved a post-works building energy rating, BER, of B2 or better in 2024, representing a 24% increase year on year.
Looking across Government expenditure, when expenditure on local authority upgrades is included, 64% of total Government expenditure on residential and community retrofitting was in homes at risk of energy poverty. In addition, over €60 million was spent on retrofitting public sector buildings in 2024, the majority funded through the climate action fund. The home energy upgrade loan scheme was launched in April 2024 to provide lower cost loans to help homeowners invest in energy efficiency, making their homes warmer, healthier and cheaper to run. A total of €99.6 million was provided from the energy efficiency national fund for the scheme.
In 2024, the Department provided €128 million for climate action and environment leadership programmes, including almost €58 million to the Environmental Protection Agency under subhead A3, Environmental Protection Agency, and A4, environment and climate research. This expenditure supports the EPA in delivering its mandate to protect, improve and restore our environment through regulation, scientific research and collaboration. The just transition programme was set up to ensure the transition to a climate-neutral economy happens in a fair way leaving no one behind. Expenditure in 2024 amounted to €15 million, with a further €12.5 million provided to other Departments dealing with just transition matters. The programme supports the low-carbon transition in the midlands region through local-led projects, for example, Ferbane Business and Technology Park and Lough Ree Access for All. Some €26.5 million in contributions to international climate commitments was paid in 2024 as part of Ireland's commitment to provide €225 million in climate finance per year by 2025.
Over €100 million was provided in 2024 to the circular economy development programme. Within this, €38 million was spent on inland fisheries programmes, €23 million on waste management programmes and €14 million on geological survey programmes. One example of expenditure from the circular economy programme is the former Kerdiffstown private landfill, which was remediated by Kildare County Council with departmental funding of over €60 million. Formally opened as a community park in February 2025, it now includes all-weather playing pitches, a shower block, art installations, accessible walkways, seating areas and a children's playground. It is an excellent example of how a severe environmental hazard can be transformed into a focal point for a community to support healthy living.
Some €410 million was expended on the national broadband plan in 2024, reflecting strong progress. During the year, design work was completed on over 550,000 premises, network build was completed for over 340,000 premises and more than 325,000 premises across 26 counties were passed and available for immediate connection. In addition, 283 public broadband connection points were in place at community locations such as community centres, library hubs, local sports facilities and tourism sites. By the end of 2024, all 672 primary schools in remote rural locations within the intervention area had high-speed connections.
The Department was tasked with delivering significant policy programmes to achieve a climate-neutral, sustainable and digitally connected Ireland. The appropriation account of 2024 sets out where the Department has invested its resources to progress the achievement of this outcome in the context of significant challenges. This work in the areas of energy, climate and the environment continues in the Department today. My colleagues and I look forward to assisting the committee with any questions members may have.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Thanks for that, Ms Buckley. Please note we will suspend the meeting at about 12.30 p.m. for ten to 15 minutes and resume thereafter. I open the floor to members. The lead speaker today is Deputy Dolan, who has 15 minutes. All other members will have ten minutes. If time permits, we will then open up the discussion for a short supplementary round of questions.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I thank the witnesses for being here, for the publication of the quarter 1 2026 purchase orders and for the information contained therein.
I asked a parliamentary question of the Department last October specifically focusing on its financial management system and contract management system. The response basically said the contract management system is devolved to the individual units and that is how it is managed. Going forward, will the Department make sure that all tenders published have contract award notices attached to them?
I am also looking to see Departments start trying to implement a golden thread of information across the data they publish. I can see who they paid money to, how much they paid them and when they paid them but I cannot tell what they paid them for, based on purchase order data. There is no column at the end that links me back to the original contract. If Departments were to add an extra column on their purchase order reports to specify the contract under which each payment was made, at least then I would be able to say a given contract has a certain number of purchase orders associated with it.
For the public, for me and the committee it would be beneficial. Is that something they would be willing to do?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I hate to do this for the first question I am asked by the PAC, but I might have to hand that over. First, of course we want to be as transparent as we can with the expenditure of public money and we are happy to do that. However, there may be specific complexities about the way we do purchases that might make that a little tricky. I will ask Ms Keyes to come in on that point.
Ms Lisa Keyes:
Good morning. I will go back to the Deputy's first question about the contract management system. While the contracts are devolved we have centralised oversight from the centre. That is how we track and monitor expenditure going forward. In terms of the release of data of quarterly reports, the Deputy will have seen that it includes for those over €20,000 the supplier’s name, the service and the invoice value. We do not at this stage publish the data that links it back to specific contracts and there are a number of reasons for that.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The reason I think it important is the Department might have a consultant or adviser under different contracts doing different work. I cannot tell whether they are hitting their targets or not based on the fact they might have multiple contracts with the Department or multiple Departments across the State. I appreciate Ms Keyes's clarity on that, and I am conscious that the time goes quickly, so I move on to the next issue. This one caught me off-guard when I was looking through the accounts. The Department was fined - although that might not be the correct word - €4.5 million in its 2024 accounts for late transposition of legislation. Will the witnesses explain to me what happened there?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
This relates to the communications function but arose under the 2024 appropriation account. It relates to the emergency warning service. Under EU law Ireland is obliged to introduce such a service. It is a complex arrangement that requires procurement of sophisticated kit. It cannot just be a simple matter of broadcasting it on the airwaves. It is the idea that if there were a flood in a particular location you would get a localised flood warning on your phone.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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When I was a county councillor in Galway I was on the text alert system and I am on it to this day. If there is a tree down on a certain road, if there is a flood in an area or a road is closed the council can send out those texts and I receive them. Maybe I receive them by virtue of the fact that I was a member of the council.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I may have signed up to a mass alert.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, I receive a text. Why is that not available for the wider public?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Ireland is obliged to introduce this under that directive. When the procurement was occurring, people were trying to work out technically how to best do it and had delayed transposition of that provision while they were working out the technicalities. The Commission was obviously concerned about this because we had not transposed one particular provision. Indeed, there were a number of provisions, but it ended up that one provision was not transposed.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How long did they give before they imposed the fine and what did the Department do to try to avoid the fine?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We ultimately transposed the entire directive. A decision was made to transpose it in a bootstrap way involving text messages. That would allow for the directive to be transposed so we were no longer at fault in non-transposition of the directive. Since then, the work has continued as I understand it.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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What did they get fined for? Was it for not transposing or for transposing by bootstrap?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Do they believe to this day that they are compliant with the directive?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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There has to be some accountability there. Somebody knew this fine was coming or that an impact would come by virtue of the fact that the legislation had not been transposed. What lessons have been learned from this and how do we make sure the Department is not in front of us again telling us it has been fined for other legislation?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
There was a good lesson out of this, which is that the perfect is the enemy of the good. What people were trying to do was achieve a perfect technical result. That was not feasible in the timeframe we had to transpose the directive. Instead, a solution was arrived at that allowed us to transpose the directive and reduce the liability to the State for non-transposition. As I understand it, work is continuing on the technical aspects to bring in the system.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, perfect is the enemy of the good, I could not agree more. One is greater than zero. I completely agree. Last week, on RTÉ there was an interesting piece about a man who had developed a flood warning system based on probabilities. He had done this at home in his spare time. Has the Department ever considered bringing in somebody like that and saying they would love to hear more about their idea and to see more citizen-led initiatives being brought in to the Civil Service? Ms Buckley said it was incredibly technical and complicated, and it has to be tendered for and procured, etc. What if there is somebody out there who has the good solution as opposed to the perfect one?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Would they liaise with the person who had that flood-based reporting system based on probabilities?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Will he take that back? I think it would be worthwhile. I understand they have a complicated job to do, and they have to get it right when they are giving out warnings. I do not want to underplay it either and say it is an easy job because it is not. However, if somebody has developed something that might be able to aid them, whether it is implemented or not, I always think it is important to talk to as many people as possible.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I move on to the Climate Action Fund. Are there a lot of unspent balances in the Climate Action Fund?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
There are not a lot of unallocated balances. We are waiting for those balances to be drawn down by the projects to which they have been allocated. I will throw a few figures at the Deputy. We have so far taken in approximately €523.8 million in funds to the Climate Action Fund. We have allocated €478.9 million of those. Those have been allocated to specific projects. I have just sent a proposal to the Minister to allocate a further €40 million, so that would bring us pretty much to full allocation of the fund.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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What percentage of that is drawn down?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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What does she think is the main thing holding back the other €200 million from being drawn down?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
It tends to be maturity of the projects. Where we can send it into something like the SEAI, which is good at pumping money into public sector retrofit or whatever, we have no problem spending the money. We have no problem spending the money by giving it to the Department of education and allowing it to put solar panels on schools. Half of the schools in the country have solar panels on them and the other half will be funded out of the Climate Action Fund. It is an efficient and effective way of putting money in where it is needed. Other projects are much slower. That is in part because the Climate Action Fund is intended to fund novel types of projects that we have not previously done in Ireland. A good example is district heating. We have a number of commitments under the Climate Action Fund to fund district heating. One of them is €5 million to fund start up to get people to prepare for a district heating project.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Has Ms Buckley a timeline for the €200 million that has not been drawn down yet? She knows the way the Commission fined the Department. Will it decommit funding if people do not draw it down and get it spent?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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It is so important right across the country for people to see the benefits of climate fund and of climate transition in our communities for schools, community centres and GAA clubs by lowering their costs. It is a win-win, and the climate is benefiting. The message has to go out that the Climate Action Fund is incredibly positive, but it has to get out there.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
It does, but there is a certain reluctance on our part because some of the projects that have been slower to the mark are the ones that are real leaders in developing a particular system. District heating is a great example. We have €50 million set aside in the fund for a Dublin district heating scheme. We are working hard with Dublin to try to get that scheme, which would be a leader in Ireland for district heating. We are the worst in Europe for renewable heating. We need to develop this structure in Ireland.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The next question is primarily around the carbon fund and carbon credits. What is a carbon credit?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
That is an extremely good question. Essentially, it is where a project is done, say, by planting trees or something like that, which has an attributed carbon value to it so that it captures a level of greenhouse gas, and a price is put upon that. That can be bought and sold in various markets, or it can be done in what are called annual emission allocations, AEAs, across Europe.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of energy and climate buys carbon credits. Is that correct?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How much, roughly, has the Department bought historically?
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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If my understanding is correct, purchasing a carbon credit means you are purchasing someone else's obligation to store carbon.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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It is actual storage. What assurance does the Department have then that the carbon is actually being stored and the projects are delivering? There are significant international concerns about double-counting of carbon credits and multiple projects being committed, probably to multiple different countries. How does the Department avoid being led down the garden path?
When we come in here and look at the witnesses' accounts, we have a certain level of assurance and trust in them because of the work done by the C and AG. How does the Department have assurances that when it buys carbon credits, it is not just buying a piece of paper?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Europe is currently not permitted to buy international carbon credits, so we can only buy carbon credits currently within the European Union to meet our carbon targets. That is how we offer assurance, because we can rely on the systems in place in other EU member states to ensure the carbon credits are there and are necessarily audited and so on. The reason we ended up with the-----
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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When the Department goes out to buy them, is it buying them off individual projects or funds that are selling carbon credits?
Mr. Brian Carroll:
We bought them directly from other member states. Where member states had overachieved in their own carbon targets, they were allowed to sell or trade that overachievement. It would have been directly from other EU member states.
The EU legal framework is quite stringent in its due diligence. The Deputy was concerned about how we know they are real. The EU has a very strict apparatus around that.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I have another concern. Carbon credits seem like a bit of a scam, and I do not mean to be cruel. Would we not be better off spending the money on actual projects on our own island that can store carbon or better improve the environment, as opposed to trying to buy pieces of paper to say we are the best child in the class?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We are spending our money as fast as we can to do just that. We have an enormous amount of capital money to spend in Ireland this year, and across our national development plan, NDP, for the next five years. The aim is to make sure we are taking as much climate action as we can at home. Because Ireland has obligations under EU law to meet certain targets, we need to be able to meet them across a range of sectors, whether that is agriculture, transport, heating in homes and businesses and so forth. To do that, we are investing money as quickly as we can.
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for that.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. Following on from what has been discussed already, I have three short questions.
Regarding the carbon credits, from its own projections, the Department has indicated that Ireland could potentially face up to €26 billion in liabilities if our climate targets are not met. That is a huge figure for the taxpayer. My colleague discussed the carbon credits and their exchange. We know that some of these carbon credits are exchanged internationally in quite an unregulated environment. Has the Department considered establishing an Irish carbon credit exchange, so that we would be a beacon of regulation among EU states when it comes to carbon credits?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
First, that is not an estimate by the Department. We have no estimate as to what the possible cost of compliance might be in the 2030s, mainly because it is impossible to estimate. It depends on so many variable factors that it is just not possible for us to give an estimate at present.
The Deputy asked an interesting question. It is not a live area of policy development at the moment, but we have had some approaches, for example, by ISIF, the investment fund, looking at trying to establish some form of carbon credit bank, working with some of the other State-owned enterprises that have areas of land that could be planted with trees or whatever. We could also re-wet bogs, which can build up carbon values. There may be scope to do that in time. We are in very early-stage, preliminary discussions - I do not want to get anyone's hope up - for something we could do in that space to offer Ireland. However, overall, it is most unlikely, based on our current projections, that we will have unused allocations, where we will meet our targets to such an extent that we would be able to sell carbon credits abroad.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We will have to buy them.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In respect of the €4.5 million fine proposed for non-transposition, can the Department confirm the total cost to the taxpayer associated with this, not just the €4.5 million fine, but also any legal fees, consultancy costs and administration costs for the infringement?
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am heartened to hear that 50% of schools have already been kitted out with solar panels and the Department is working on the other 50%. When will 100% of the schools in the country be complete?
Mr. Barry Quinlan:
That is being run by the Department of education. There has been a huge uptick in the scheme, which has really taken off. It is being procured in the usual way by schools and boards of management, so there is a huge impetus to do it. We are trying to work with the Department of education to encourage it to spend the money as quickly as possible. The money is there waiting in the account. This is exactly the type of thing we want to fund from the Climate Action Fund.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
This is work that tends to be done over the summer break. By the way, in the first round, each individual school came in as less than the estimate we had originally from the Department of education, so it is being run very efficiently at local level, which is very good to see. I suspect the majority of schools will be done over the next two summers, but we will wait and see. We will get those results back from the Department of education.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Regarding the general underspend across Vote 29, Ms Buckley explained reasons for that, for example, that there were allocations to other parties which were not drawn down.
The Department requires a Supplementary Estimate of €520 million for the electricity credits in 2024. Despite nearly €1 billion being spent on domestic electricity credits in the previous year, we saw an underspend, at the same time, across the Vote. Was the Department consciously underspending in the knowledge that this spend on the electricity credits was in the offing? It is hard to understand why half a billion euro was not budgeted for, given that in the previous year the Department spent nearly €1 billion, and there was no budget whatsoever for the electricity credits in the 2024 budget.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The electricity credit was a budgetary decision taken towards the end of the year, in October, and the Department had not been funded for it because it was a budgetary decision taken in that space. As in the previous year, we had to have a Supplementary Estimate to fund that because obviously we did not have half a billion lying around.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We might have.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
If only. The underspends on the funds are because the funds are for different purposes and they are allocated but not drawn down. It is not that we were holding money back with the hope of getting money elsewhere.
There is a very careful negotiation with the Department of public expenditure. Part of the Supplementary Estimate we got was for the acceleration of the national broadband plan but we were made to find half of the cost of that capital fund from within our own capital spend. The Department of public expenditure funded only half of it, to my very great chagrin. We found savings across the Department in our capital spend to make sure we could cover the totality of the cost of the acceleration activity of the national broadband plan. It was a good news story, as more premises were being passed and connected to high-speed Wi-Fi.
Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My next question is on the climate action fund and I want to make some general comments about the SEAI grants and how they are administered. They are generous but people look at this and see moneys left in the State coffers generally while their home heating bills, gas bills and electricity bills are all rising. There seems to be a disconnect between the moneys in the coffers and the reality on the ground. For someone refurbishing a door, the grant is €800 but doors cost more than €5,000 these days. It is not the massive incentive that perhaps the Department thought it would be.
A big issue in Dublin is boilers. Many properties have oil boilers. Throughout the country, we see oil or gas boilers. People are offered refurbished ones. What is happening does not reflect the reality on the ground. People cannot afford the deep retrofit. Now, people will not go to a home to do work for less than €50,000. There is a disconnect on the ground between the people who need this money in a cost-of-living crisis and who want to do something for the environment but cannot do so. Does Ms Buckley think the schemes we have are fit for purpose? I would be interested to hear her comments on this.
I am a very big supporter of the ancillary benefits people get through the fuel allowance, such as house wrapping. It is a great scheme and it should be rolled out. Maybe we could take it away from the fuel allowance because not enough people qualify for it. More people should have more access to the house wrapping scheme. I would like to hear Ms Buckley's general comments on these retrofitting schemes and the just transition.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
No more than committee members, we are very concerned about the prices of fuel, particularly fossil fuels, given recent events. It is particularly challenging for people who heat their homes with kerosene because it is one of the most affected fuels. If we are to take any advantage from this crisis, it is that it encourages us to go further down the path of trying to retrofit people's homes and get them off fossil fuels.
The Minister very much shares these concerns, and in January he overhauled our scheme of grants with the SEAI. We have included windows and doors for the first time as an ancillary measure, and very generous grants are available for these. He also increased the grant amounts across a range of areas. We have an enhanced warmer home scheme, which provides free retrofits for people who really cannot afford to go down that route. We have also introduced a passport scheme whereby if people cannot do a full retrofit but can do windows and doors, insulation or another element, they can come back a few times to the SEAI and get a number of different grants. This is an important part as it allows people to pace themselves. We also have cheap loans under the home energy loan scheme. People can get much cheaper interest rates to help them fund the transition.
On energy prices more generally, the Minister established the national energy affordability task force last year. It was set up to look at how prices were structured in Ireland, how we could move people onto less costly forms of energy, and how we could tackle what is known as the spark gap, which might be the difference between a fossil fuel and an electrical solution for heating. The work of this task force is being supercharged by current events. The Minister has asked the task force to produce its final report in July, which will then feed into the budgetary decisions we need to make on potential taxation and expenditure measures. The team, some of whom are sitting behind me, are working very hard on delivering on it.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in today and I know they have probably done a lot of preparatory work. The first question that jumps out at me is about the contradictions or complexities of having climate and energy in the one Department. Are they often at odds with each other, as much as they to be seen to be complementary?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
That is an extremely good question. It is probably the best place to put climate in the first instance because the goal is that we put as much renewable energy as possible onto our system and then electrify as much as we can. If we follow this as the line of logic, we make the electricity system renewable to the greatest extent possible and then electrify heat and transport. This then means that the heat and transport are themselves renewable because they are being powered by electricity.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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With the likes of the energy required for data centres and everything else, surely some of it goes against some of the instincts on climate. How are the two of these balanced? We have a climate need and an energy need, and they do clash.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I will pull it back a small bit. Renewable energies tend to be intermittent energies. They are there when the sun shines and the wind blows. Our electricity system has to be available. There has to be a complete balance between when electricity is delivered and when it is asked for. To achieve this balance, we tend to need to have backup systems, which in Ireland are gas based. As demand for electricity grows, we need to provide gas-based solutions or other types of solution to balance that, for example, procuring a greater number of more efficient gas-fired power generators for our system. Deputy Neville is aware that we need to make sure we have a backup gas system so that in the hopefully unlikely - touch wood - event that anything ever happened to our gas interconnectors, we would have a supply of gas on the island that would help us power our electricity system.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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On that, we have 43% or 44% renewables. What do we feel is the highest number we could go to for renewables, within reason, over the next five years? Obviously, if we had batteries, it could be an infinite number.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Will we reach that target?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Ms Buckley feels we can get to 70%.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Given the rate of growth of renewables; we have over 8 GW of renewables on the system and our peak demand at present is 6 GW. We already have more renewable potential generation on the system then we have peak demand. Demand, of course, is growing very quickly. The OECD recently produced a report in which it indicated that Ireland could feasibly make it to 90% renewables on its grid, with a balanced grid.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To change the subject, how much carbon tax was collected in 2024?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Roughly.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I would like the figure for 2024. Ideally, I would like the figure for 2025 but we do not have it. I also want to check how much of it was spent.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I know but is it collected by the Department?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Questions have been raised about it not being spent.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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No. I am asking whether it is being spent on the schemes that it should be spent on.
Carbon tax is collected. It comes from petrol and diesel. The theory behind it, correct me if I am wrong, is that it is to spent on environmentally beneficial projects.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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But is it spent?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To be honest, that is the question I want to ask. How much was collected in 2024? How much was spent in 2024?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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That is not the question. The question is: on a high level, how much did we collect? Of the taxpayers' money that was taken from the public, how much did we spend?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It is important because carbon tax is a controversial tax. It is beneficial in a way because it widens the tax base, but at the same time it is supposed to and should be spent in a way and I would like to know if it is spent in that way.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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How much of that was spent? Ms Buckley is saying half of that spent by the Department of climate. How much did the Department spend?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The Department underspend by €16 million.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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In fairness, that is not bad.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The Department spent approximately 90%. What are the main projects? Where did that money go from the Department's side?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Is Ms Buckley happy with how the SEAI is working, because even my colleague brought it up? They can be complex schemes. They can be hard to avail of. Is Ms Buckley happy that the money is getting spent in the way it should be?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Generally speaking, although the SEAI needs to ramp up very severely its capacity to spend money effectively. This year it has already got €200 million more in allocation than it did in 2024. We need them to make it as user-friendly as possible for people and businesses to claim that money, have as little attrition as possible between application and actual drawdown, and to some extent - I do not want to say we need public servants to take a bit more risk and repeat what is being said in public at the moment-----
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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We had that in Irish Rail earlier on.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
-----we need public servants to take a little bit more risk here even though it is public money. We are keeping a very close eye on the SEAI's capacity to spend that increased allocation this year and if we feel that there is any difficulty about the authority spending it, we will switch it out into different schemes, including, maybe, in education or whatever.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The Comptroller and Auditor General, in his opening statement, referenced the 702,000 carbon credits. What was the total cost of that? Was the value of that written off or how does that work?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What would have been the original cost?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The rough calculation we did, and once again, it was on the back of a fag packet calculation, was approximately €2 million. Would that be correct?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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So it was a €2.5 million write-off.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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We will say, even if we are being conservative, over €2 million of money was-----
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Can I explain why that was? There was a change in EU rules, largely, I suspect, because of the concerns expressed by the Deputy's colleagues. These were investments into international funds that were to do with bioeconomy, bioforestry and things like that, and the EU then changed their rules to make it tighter that you could no longer use carbon credits invested in funds like that to offset against emissions at home. The EU changed the rules and that meant those credits were unusable.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Okay, fine. I presume solar panel grants go through the Department. With the current climate crisis and, I suppose, with our urgency given that impact to help people, are there plans to increase things like residential solar grants? We hear a lot of talk around that. Do we have the ability to make those changes in the Department this year for next year? Is Ms Buckley seeking those?
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It can change the market.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
You change the market. The practice has been if you apply and there is some tweak to the grant amount mid-application, you will get the added value anyway. One should not hesitate in applying.
We have been really heartened by the fact that with the introduction of the new scheme by the Minister in January, there has been a huge increase in applications into the SEAI. They have processed 29,000 applications for residential retrofitting in the first three months of this year, which is a real big uptake. On some schemes, they have had a 100% increase in application. Given they have all this money to spend, we would hate for a view to come out of this committee that people should hang back, wait and they might get something better in a few months. We would suggest that people, if they are thinking about investing in solar panels - by the way, it is the single thing you can do now to reduce your energy cost - and if they have the few bob and they are thinking of doing, and even if they do not like the look of them, they will not see them after two months. I know myself, because I got them installed after I got this job. They become invisible to you.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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With the targets, there is a lot of questioning about the cost to the Exchequer of potential missed climate targets. What is the next major timeline on that and what are the amounts that we could risk losing? Is it a 2030 target? Is it 2029? Is the potential hit €100 million, €1 billion or €100,000?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
First of all, the timeline when this will become clearest is 2032, although there will be some interim stages where some cost of compliance might arise under different directives. However, we cannot estimate what the cost will be because it depends on too many variables. If Ireland does not meet its targets, by how much it will not meet them and to what extent will other EU member states meet their targets and have credits available to be sold - and at current estimation very few member states will? What then will be the cost of the carbon credits, if any available, and how will Ireland be placed in terms of purchasing them because some very big member states are likely to undershoot their targets on current estimation and they will be in the market as well, if there is a market? At this point, we are talking already to the Commission, just indicating to them, if this system is going to work, whether it will work in the 2030s and if not, whether there are ways in which national investments can be counted against what might be needed in terms of compliance because we feel that the way the system is set up, it may be quite problematic to implement down the line so there may be things we can do in the meantime to make sure that it becomes a workable system and make sure that we do the necessary investments across Europe to reduce Europe's target because it is a European target we have to meet. Ireland just has a bit of the European target.
Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Buckley for her time.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome everybody here today. I will go back to the transposition and the fees that the Department incurred there for €4.5 million. Am I correct?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Why did the Department have to pay a fine? Was the Department not given adequate time to implement it?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
There was adequate time to implement it. What occurred was a number of provisions were not implemented effectively and there was one that was not transposed because the officials involved were trying to put in place the technical solution underneath and that took more time than we had to transpose the directive. Eventually, as I say, a decision was taken, including by me, that we would implement an interim transposition solution, which has gone in place and which meant we were only fined for our late transposition as opposed to an ongoing fine for non-transposition. At least one other member state was fined an ongoing fine for non-transposition, which is much dearer. It limited our exposure to the fine but, unfortunately, because we were late in transposing that, particularly that one provision, we ended up incurring a fine from the court.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Most of Europe did not incur the fine. Am I correct in saying that there were only ten other states that incurred it?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Did the Department not have notification, in 2018, of this? I still do not get why it was not implemented, if the Department had so many years to get it planned and get the directive transposed.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is it done now? Is the emergency call service implemented now?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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According to my notes, this has gone on from 2018. It is now 2026 and it is still not implemented. Is that correct?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Emergency call service, is that correct?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is that in place now?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is in place?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I have never heard any of that.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. From 2018, when the office first got notification, we still do not have this available in Ireland. Is that correct?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I have never heard of any emergency service. I have never received anything on my phone. I know they have something in the North of Ireland, because I live on the Border, and I have received that notification from the North, but I have never received it from the Republic. After getting a €4.5 million fine, we still have not got it. Are we going to incur another fine because we still have not got it? No. How many open infringements and proceedings are ongoing at the moment?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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How much in fines will be charged for those if we do not make those directives?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Would it be similar to-----
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Would it be similar to the €4.5 million?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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How long have we had notification of those directives that we have not implemented either?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
A number of them have come through in the last couple of years. The largest one and the one that we would be probably at greatest risk on is the renewable energy directive, RED III, which is extremely complex. We are working very hard with partner Departments, such as the Department of housing around the permitting aspects of that. I should say that all 27 member states are currently in infringement on RED III because it is so complex. Ireland is very much not on its own in finding it very difficult to do that. We have a very large team working on it in my Department and I know there is a big team working on it in the Department of housing and other Government Departments. We will work very hard to make sure that we do not get to fine stage on that, if at all possible.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I want to move on to electric vehicles. How are we currently doing with our target for 2030 on electric vehicles here in Ireland?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I am actually not directly responsible for electric vehicles, but I happen to know we have met our 2025 target. We have had a recent surge in purchases of electric vehicles, which is great because electrification of transport is a very tricky area. It is great to see that this is taking place.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Are we going to meet our 2030 target?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Have we enough electric chargers?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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How many electric chargers have we? You do not know how many electric chargers we have Statewide?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, I will move on then from that one. In relation to the TAMS grant, farmers were benefiting greatly from aid for renewable energy but that seems to have been cut for some reason. Can I be given an indication why that would have been cut for solar panels under TAMS for farmers to use?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, so you are not involved in that one?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It would be beneficial instead of incurring a fine in 2032, would it not, to ensure that we have plenty of different grants available?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Carbon tax was mentioned earlier. I did not quite catch the figures. Was a figure of €14 million mentioned for what was taken in from the carbon tax on petrol and diesel?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
No. What happened was we recouped €16 million in 2024, which is in fact the correct figure, in our allocation of capital which is derived from the carbon tax. We spent a very substantial amount. We had €388 million allocated to us. We spent €372 and returned €16 million to the Exchequer.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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That was spent within the Department?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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That is okay. Regarding elevated energy costs, Ireland has the highest electric usage and the highest cost in the whole of Europe. Data centres seem to be using an awful lot of our energy here in Ireland at the moment and I have one issue in relation to EirGrid. In the area where I live, they are trying to overground it. There have been plenty of protests about it because we want it underground. I had asked the Minister at one stage in a parliamentary question if the Department gave any money to EirGrid and his answer was that it did not. Further to that, I read in documents last night that EirGrid actually got €3.5 billion from the Department. Is that correct?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
No, not as yet. As part of its NDP decisions last summer, the Government decided for the first time ever, as a shareholder in both ESBN and EirGrid, to invest a total across the two companies of €3.5 billion as shareholder in equity. The €1.5 billion was already invested last year in ESBN and €2 billion will be invested in EirGrid in the course of the year.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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So the Department is giving €2 billion to EirGrid?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, that is what I am talking about.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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How much has been spent on EirGrid so far? It is still not operational and it is still not underground.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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My constituents do not want it overground and they have requested on numerous occasions that it would be underground. I want to ask for the general public today, how much money has been spent on EirGrid so far.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The Market Cap Fund gives money to EirGrid, is that not correct? And the Department also gave the €2 billion.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, for you
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, but it is still my constituents' money and everybody else's money that has gone into it. The Market Cap Fund did not just appear. It is actually money belonging to people.
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
I thank the committee for inviting us here today and I thank the Deputy for her questions. In terms of how EirGrid is funded, EirGrid and ESBN, which are two network providers - system operators, as they are called - within the State, are funded by over 2.5 million residential and business consumers through network tariffs. Network tariffs feed into the retail bills of Bord Gáis, Electric Ireland and all the retailers that supply us pay, which would pay those network tariffs to ESBN and EirGrid. That is the funding. As recently as December we published the latest funding plan for the five years from 2026 to 2030. This sets out from €14 billion up to €18 billion for both system operators to spend and which will be recovered from consumers, not from the Exchequer. The Exchequer funding, as the Secretary General said, was for a balance sheet investment in order to allow those companies to borrow and spend the money over the next ten to 20 years.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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In hindsight, is EirGrid not actually allowing the networks to charge a tariff that the consumer has to pay? The State is actually allowing the electricity companies to charge that tariff. Is that correct?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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What is the percentage of the tariff?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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That is the percentage that the State is allowing consumers to be charged on their bill. That is an additional 30%.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is 30%. It is another tax on consumers. That 30% is what the Government is allowing.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is 30% extra that everybody is being charged.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being with us today. I will return to the question of the fine on the EU directive. The answer to the question was that a decision was made to have an interim implementation of the directive to avoid higher fines. Why was there not an earlier decision on that?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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If we had taken that decision 12 months earlier, could we have avoided the fine?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The reason I say it is that €4.5 million of public money is significant. All of the blame for it, or the reasons for it, lie within the public sector or the Government. There is no one else. There are no other third party elements. It is a very significant amount of money. This committee deals with many issues with procurement, external contractors and everything else. It is a whopping amount of money when the decisions seem to lie within the Department.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Is there not a system within the Department that flags critical decision-making or critical project management phases that are likely to lead to potential fines if action is not taken?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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At what point in that process does the alarm bell go off to indicate that if a decision to transpose is not taken, we are likely to face a fine?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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My father-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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My father has a great phrase: "Do not confuse effort with results."
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Well, indeed. What happens is that the real alarm bell goes off when we get an initial infringement notice from the Commission. As I said, we have 11 of those infringements currently in the Department. There is quarterly reporting on those to my management board as to where they are. We check regularly and ensure we are resourcing the necessary teams to do that. For example, on the red directive, which I have indicated is the one that I am primarily concerned with because it is very complex, we have put in resources across the Department to try to deliver and drive that implementation as best we can. There are some areas that need a little more. We will keep it under very active supervision.
We also engage in package discussions with the Commission regularly, across our infringements, which is a novel way of doing it. The Directorate-General for the Environment is one of our major interlocutors. It would have infringements across multiple Departments. We would bring all those Departments together, go, collectively, to meet representatives of the Directorate-General or they come to meet us, and we work through each stage of where those are. The Commission tends to be very familiar with where we are at in any particular transposition journey. By making sure we have good communications with the Commission, we try to avoid having-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I am just conscious of time. On that specific issue, could Ms Buckley provide the committee with the timeline of the work done on the transposition of that directive in writing, particularly the time when the decision was made to have the temporary transposition?
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I want to move to the Climate Action Fund. Deputy Ardagh talked about the reality of millions and billions in funds, and the reality of schemes on the ground. I cannot tell the witnesses how popular the better energy, warmer homes scheme is. It has a real impact on people's lives. They do not have a huge amount of savings lying to one side and they have better energy and warmer homes. The scheme does what it says.
There are difficulties with the scheme. I have dealt with those with the SEAI is some detail. They centre around the European Union's decision not to allow any State sponsorship of carbon-consuming devices. The reality is that there are now people being rejected from that scheme for insulation, or the wraparound, as people call it, because they have a gas boiler. The reason they are being rejected is that there is not the energy improvement that the scheme requires. I am saying this on behalf of and to the SEAI, and to the witnesses: we have to get a workaround on that issue. What is happening is that people do not have the cash to buy a new boiler so they end up being excluded from the wraparound. Often, the SEAI will now say that people can get a boiler, which it cannot pay for, and it will then put in the wraparound. That is a mad scheme. The alternative is that we give people heat pump systems, which is saddling them with higher electricity costs for a scheme that is about trying to help people who are in energy poverty. We have to get a workaround on carbon consuming devices. I do not know how we do it but it has to be done. We also have people who are eligible for the better energy, warmer homes schemes but by virtue of there being waiting lists of 18 months or two years, when their boiler breaks they have no way of getting a replacement heating system of any sort. They have no money in their accounts or savings to replace the boiler. We cannot give them a grant the way we used to. They certainly do not have €10,000 for a heat pump. Yet, they are eligible for a full wraparound and heat pump. They would take all of it if it were available in an emergency. We are telling them to wait for two years until we get to them under the better energy, warmer homes scheme, and have no heating. That is not an answer either.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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That is a very clever answer but it does not solve the problem for the constituents I asked about.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Has there been any attempt to use the Climate Action Fund to increase the roll-out of the pilot? I am familiar with it because the SEAI has talked to me about it. Are we using the Climate Action Fund in other ways to assist with the development of technology? There is a technology gap here, and I accept that.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We have not been asked specifically to use the Climate Action Fund for that. It is currently being funded under the money we are giving to the SEAI from our national development plan, NDP, allocation. We have introduced a 100% grant scheme for attic and wall insulation for people on the warmer homes scheme as a preliminary so they do not have to wait for the grant of the full warmer homes scheme to come through. We are working hard to try to reduce that spark gap, which the Deputy has talked about. If you go off a gas or kerosene boiler, you no longer have the fossil fuel bill but you do have the electrical bill. The question is whether we can do something about the cost of electricity. That is what the national energy affordability task force, NEAT, is for.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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There is a lack of a solar element to the better energy, warmer homes scheme. It would assist if the scheme included the installation of solar panels. We could then tell people to take the heat pump because they will have solar panels to offset the cost of that electricity.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We would also be switching from being a lower cost scheme to a very expensive per cost scheme because of what we are doing on gas. I accept-----
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I will return to one item. The witnesses might know that I am the author of the Energy Poverty Reduction (Use of Surplus Renewable Energy) Bill, which is about us switching off the surplus renewable energy that comes at night time because we do not have ways to capture it. The Bill is simple. It calls on the Minister to have a strategy within the next 12 months for renewable energy. The Minister recently wrote to me. I have not been able to get a parliamentary question to get him to confirm it on the record of the House. I might get Ms Buckley to do that here. The Minister wrote to me and stated that based on previous correspondence, he was pleased to confirm that the Department was now leading the development of an integrated strategy on the use of renewable surplus energy and that it would co-ordinate technical grid limits for system non-synchronous penetration, SNSP, flexible demand, storage deployment and interconnector flows. Is Ms Buckley familiar with the commitment the Minister has made to me in writing or with the development of a strategy for renewable energy?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I do not think I am familiar with that particular commitment and am not sure where that letter came from.
Certainly, we will be looking at important aspects of that as part of the work of the task force, particularly things like tariffs. Tariff reform would be a necessary part of trying to get people to use energy at times when it is relatively cheap in the system. It is also part of managing demand. If we can get people to use energy at night, when there is a lot of wind but we do not need it, it helps with that, and we empower consumers through that way of doing it.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Is the secret of that not also having better storage options at night? For example, no matter how much people use their energy at night, there will be lower demand at night, yet the wind turbines are turning. Therefore, if we have them heating hot water tanks at night or charging their cars at night, we are effectively using those devices as batteries.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We also need commercial battery storage. The point I am making is that we need a strategy for that renewable energy.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We are certainly going to be working on all of those elements under the auspices of the task force. A key part of that is enabling consumers to change their behaviour, both business and domestic commuters, so they switch to doing things like charging their tanks at night or, in my case, switching to charging my EV at night. By the way, we are already seeing that change. We are seeing an increase in demand at 2 a.m.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It is infrastructure that will assist them to do that, for example having an electric car, having a smart meter or having the devices that allow them to do that. Behaviour alone is not the issue. People want to do these things, but they often do not have the infrastructure or technology available to allow them to do it.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
And we need the tariffs. We need dynamic tariffs, and I know the crew is working on introducing dynamic tariffs very soon. We already have more than 2 million homes fitted with smart meters. We have a lot of the kit. We just need to make sure that we put all of the systems and structures in place to enable people to make those behavioural changes.
Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Ms Buckley might write to me on that commitment.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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We will take a short break.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everybody for being here. I apologise in advance because my position down the pecking order in the speaker's list means I will be repeating some of the questions. I will start off by asking about the overall position in relation to our targets as a country for carbon reduction. We are committed to reducing our carbon output by 51% by 2030 in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. I understand the EPA recently said we will probably achieve about a 23% reduction. Does Ms Buckley agree with the EPA's assessment on that?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The EPA's assessment was based on the WAM - "with additional measures" - assessment. On the basis of a WEM - "with existing measures" - assessment, it estimated that we would achieve about 9% of our targets. We rely on the EPA. It is an authoritative source of research on this matter. It is shortly about to produce its new WEM and WAM estimates. We have to assume that when the EPA is talking about this, there are a lot of assumptions underlying it and a lot of technical work going into it.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Broadly, Ms Buckley does not disagree.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is a revised downward projection by the EPA. It previously estimated 29% and now it is down to 23%.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. I want to turn to the consequences of us not meeting the target. I know Ms Buckley touched on this earlier. What are the consequences for Ireland for not meeting the target and for falling well short of it, by the looks of it?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
There are two potential consequences. The first one applies in the event that Ireland and other countries do not meet their targets under what is called the effort-sharing regulation, which is the main one we would be talking about here. There are potential costs of compliance under a number of the regulations but let us talk about the effort-sharing regulation to keep it simple. The effort-sharing regulation covers those sectors that are not covered at the moment by the emissions trading scheme, ETS, so not electricity and other things. As it happens, electricity is where we have made the most progress.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Will Ms Buckley be as brief as possible because I have to get through these questions?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We buy credits, in effect, from other states-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----that are ahead of the game in terms of their targets.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. What are the likely financial implications for us?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We know at this stage that it will be a substantial miss.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Those estimates have changed both up and down, so we do not know. We do not know if those carbon credits will be available from other member states. We do not know how many countries will be in the hunt for them. We do not know how much they will cost so we cannot give an estimate.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We do not know if the European Union will revise some of this position.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is likely to cost us billions, though.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Are we providing for this? This is three and a half years down the track; it is not decades away. How are we planning to deal with this? How are we providing for that possible huge financial cost?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The overall provision for this is a whole-of-government effort. I know there is a note in our accounts saying there is a contingent liability but there has been no decision taken, as the C and AG said, as to how any such costs might have to be funded. For example, they could be all paid from my Department's Vote - Vote 29. They could be paid from every Vote that has a responsible sectoral emissions ceiling if they exceed it, or it could even come from the Central Fund. That is assuming any money gets paid out at all and we do not know that yet.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, I will move on. In a similar vein, in terms of our offshore wind energy, there has been delay after delay in trying to progress wind energy with the exception of the Arklow facility. When does Ms Buckley expect we will have large-scale offshore wind energy facilities in this country?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We are hopeful that a permitting consent will be given by An Coimisiún Pleanála this year. That will be the first one. We are hopeful that the others will be consents, as opposed to refusals, and will be next year. Most of the projects at this point either have their requests for further information submitted or are planning to do so in the coming weeks and months. Given the timelines needed for final investment decisions by the companies involved, which obviously are private investment and highly-mobile capital expenditure, we anticipate construction beginning in the late 2020s and energisation, ideally, of one or more projects by 2030 and into the 2030s.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So 2030 would be the earliest or the best-case scenario?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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When did we previously-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, quickly please.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that. When did we previously estimate that we would have offshore, large-scale generation?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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As of now, we are saying we will be nowhere near 5 GW. We will be potentially 1 GW.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We have 4.2 GW between phase 1 and phase 2. That is according to the current situation. As you know, one phased project pulled out. Otherwise we would have been very close to 5 GW. Currently we have 4.2 GW in process between phase 1 and phase 2 and we are working on the auction for the second phase of the DMAP off the south coast. That would bring us above 5 GW.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will move on. As we know, the Market Cap Fund was introduced after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the huge surge in energy costs. How much has been collected to date in that fund?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is the total amount.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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How much of that has been spent?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So €15.5 million has been spent.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Why is it so slow?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
A political decision has to be taken on the expenditure by the Minister. The Minister determines what the money gets spent on. So far, the first application that came in was about the non-residential retrofit to fill a hole in other budgets. We are actually very relieved though-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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This was collected between 2022 and 2023 - it was said that it would happen over three years - and yet there is €174 million sitting in that pot.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I know. I accept all of that but it is extraordinary that the money has not been used within the three-year period given the size of the-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is there any outstanding collection?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Everything has been paid so there is no-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Briefly, please.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There is work still in progress. There is potential for the money to be collected. The national broadband plan appears to be an overall success story. It had a €4.4 billion budget overall. Is it due to come in on target?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Could I have a clarification? Will the witnesses give us a snapshot of where we are on budget and time?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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And on time. What is the overall number of properties that will benefit?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is the roll-out the responsibility of the Department of Department of Culture, Communications and Sport?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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To turn to the home energy loan scheme, almost €100 million, I think, was provided in 2024 for that. How much of that has been utilised?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
That is an extremely good question. It has all been paid upfront. The loan scheme itself has taken longer to ramp up than we might have preferred. Only the pillar banks came in at first but it has spread across more lending agencies in particular credit unions which is useful. We would like to see it more heavily promoted because it offers real savings in terms of interest rates to people who draw it down. The Department is working with the agencies involved to try to make sure they point customers in its direction because that would be useful.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Do we have any idea how much has been----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Or allocated even?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Out of how much provided for in the budget?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is less than 10% take-up at this point in time.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The warmer homes scheme is always a difficult one for us as public representatives. Currently the waiting time is approximately 24 months. I know output is increasing but I understand approximately 7,700 were done in 2024. That was up from 5,923. It is not a huge escalation in the number of properties done. I think there are 12,000 to 14,000 applications pending in the system.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The SEAI has an 11,500 target for this year. As it stands, it is reasonably confident it will get there. The warmer homes is a deeper retrofit but it came in slightly under target budget last year which was good. It saved a bit of money. We work all the time with SEAI to see if it can increase the number of contractors willing to do it and up the rate of delivery.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What is the constraint? Ms Buckley mentioned it came in under budget which is extraordinary given-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So it is not a budget issue.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Ms Buckley will appreciate these are the people most in need in terms of having energy efficiency work carried out and they are waiting for two years at a time when energy prices are so high. Can we do better on this?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The Minister introduced an interim scheme where by an interim step of insulation can be done at a 100% cost to the Exchequer. That is an initial stage that can be done while they wait for the deeper retrofit. That at least gives them the house warmth benefits which is a good idea.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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How much of that has been rolled out?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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With the Chair's indulgence, I would like to just get the answer.
Mr. Brian Carroll:
In response to the measures the Minister introduced in January, applications for attic insulation up 81% year on year. Cavity wall insulation applications are up 62% year on year. There is an acceleration in activity. As the Secretary General said, people on the warmer homes waiting list can for the first time now apply for insulation of their attic and cavity walls, 100% grant funded, as a stand-alone measure.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I do not think I have ever seen such persistent underspend across so many subheads from a Department at this committee. Given that we are in a climate crisis that is not only an environmental imperative for our country and the planet but also given the economic consequences of not meeting our targets, I am concerned by the underspend. On the regulation of district heating, my understanding is the Department had understood that the CRU was the statutory regulator but then the Department's own legal unit expressed the view that it had not been clearly designated as such and therefore the Department could not advance public money to the Commission for the Regulations of Utilities. How did this happen?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It cannot.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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With the greatest of respect to the Secretary General, the Department should have caught that before and put in place the primary legislation.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That cannot happen because the Department cannot provide the funding.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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When will this be fixed?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Are district heating schemes being held up by this? Ms Buckley mentioned district heating schemes and how important they are. Are any being held up due to the fact that there is no regulator?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We need to put in place the regulatory base for district heating but initially through the Climate Action Fund we provided €5 million for schemes that want to become district heating schemes. They can start doing the prep work, design and all that. That fund was put in place last year. As I said, we separately have funding for Dublin City Council to put in a district heating scheme. We have one live district heating scheme in South Dublin County Council which was able to proceed without the regulatory base. It is feasible to proceed but it would be better for everybody if they had that firm legal base and a regulator in place to make sure the rights of consumers and so forth are protected.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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There was a huge underspend in the 2024 accounts for waste management programmes. Why is that?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
That is essentially because that money is put in place for landfill remediation and it was not drawn down by the local authorities. We provide funding to local authorities to do landfill remediation. I mentioned the Kerdiffstown landfill that has been remediated. Drawdown was slower by local authorities. A deal of our underspend is because drawdown is slower than we anticipate or have to provide for at the beginning of the year.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Recruitment issues were cited. What do they relate to?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Was it on the local authorities' side or the Department's side?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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There was an underspend on foreshore due to anticipated costs for legal settlements being less than estimated. What does this relate to?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The cases were taken against the State for-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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-----the delay in issuing foreshore licences.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is the Department responsible for issuing foreshore licences?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Yes, and, again, there are huge delays in the context of granting foreshore licences. There was a huge underspend in relation to MARA.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Will we see that issue rectified in the accounts for 2025? Are we going to continue to see these persistent underspends in those accounts?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I refer to right across the subheads.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We have to provide for people's salaries and if people cannot be recruited, you do achieve an underspend. What we tend to do where that arises is move money around a great deal, to the best of our ability, in order to make sure. In 2024, we had a big overspend on the successful roll-out of National Broadband Ireland. We moved money across to try and cover that overspend.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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When we look at the programme expenditure for 2024, we can see that the Department actually spent less in 2024 than it did in 2023.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The full programme expenditure, which I find bizarre.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It goes to the underspend right across the board, however. Across the entire programme, less was spent on climate in 2024 than was the case in 2023. We are in a climate emergency. Where is the urgency? In 2023, the full Vote expenditure was €1.97 billion. In 2024, it was €1.73 billion.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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In both years, however, the Department returned surpluses to the Exchequer.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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They were in and around €40 million for both years.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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My point is that the work of the Department is so essential and urgent to the State that it is intolerable to have underspends across the subheads. The Department and all of the officials have to be working with urgency. I know that the Department is reliant on other bodies, including the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, MARA, etc., but it has to put pressure on them to make sure we are delivering.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I hope we will see that in the 2025 accounts.
On the Market Cap Fund, I refer to the returns from the CRU. The Department had the CRU assist it with returns. There were only 236 returns. They were done by spreadsheet, I understand. There were 56 late, but only five were surcharged. Why was that?
Mr. John Melvin:
The 236 returns would have covered the whole market. On surcharges for late returns, we issued six determination notices in cases where we did not receive returns. All of those would have been met with returns delivered. I am not aware of the number the Deputy referred to regarding a significant number of non-returns.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The figures I have are that 56 were late but that only five were surcharged. Those are the figures I have before me.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Why were consultants engaged? There were only 236 returns.
Mr. John Melvin:
There is very complex legislation that imposes complex rules on the energy market, the trading and settlement code and various other codes. What was important was that we could follow the revenues that were visible in the market, ensure they were very clearly tracked into the legislation and ensure that the returns were submitted through a-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The CRU did not have that competency.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Melvin for that. On the Market Cap Fund, are we saying there is about €150 million in it that is uncommitted?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Ms Buckley stated that the terms of the Act are tightly drafted, so the Department is struggling to find things to fund that. Who drafted the legislation relating to what it could be used to fund?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It is because of a directive that the Market Cap Fund is so tightly-----
Mr. Paul Bolger:
The legislation mirrors what is in the directive. The directive sets out very clearly what can be drawn down, who is to be levied and what it can be used for. The legislation is very clear; it sets out provisions that the Minister, in consultation with the Minister for public expenditure and reform, can make decisions in relation to the allocation of the fund. To the Secretary General's point, that is what the primary legislation provides for.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That sounds more general than what Ms Buckley alluded to earlier.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Where would we be compared with other EU countries? Have other EU countries spent this money? What are they spending it on?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Does the Secretary General know?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is it a tolerable situation that €150 million is just sitting with the NTMA on a low rate of interest?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The one thing it does give us is a bit of firepower to implement the recommendations of the task force. I am
quite pleased that we have it because in the current circumstances where it is not easy to get additional funding from the Department of public expenditure and reform, it gives us a bit of scope to implement some measures that might cost some money. I am quite pleased, therefore, that we still have it.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The Department returned €80 million to the Exchequer over two years.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I know, and I absolutely appreciate the money being spent wisely. As already stated, however, in the context of the Department's work, an underspend is alarming.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I do not disagree. We try to spend within a penny of my allocation. However, the Deputy has to understand that in both of the years she is talking about, the Department got an enormous additional supplementary budget and we had to spend it in a very tight timeframe. We did so, and we put money into people's energy accounts. We do pay exceptionally close attention to all our spending. It has got even closer because of various edicts recently issuing from the Department of public expenditure and reform. We pay very close attention and will continue to do so. We have more money to spend so it is becoming even more critical that we do so.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Agreed. Will we see a surplus returned in the 2025 accounts?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Buckley.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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I thank the witnesses for coming before us. Can Ms Buckley tell me when the climate action plan for 2026 will be published?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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It is 21 May. This is the plan for 2026, and Ms Buckley is saying it will be in the coming months.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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He has only recently agreed that the Department can draft it.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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What did he recently instruct the Department to proceed to do?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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So the Department only started drafting a plan for 2026 recently.
Mr. Barry Quinlan:
Linked to the carbon budget proposal, we got the report back from the joint Oireachtas committee. We have a new programme board across all the sectors. A lot of work has been done in preparation. Given everything that the Minister had to consider, we have an overall proposal around the entire area of climate action. The big focus is on spending money and implementation.
The Minister has a lot of plans around what the CAP 2026 will be, which will be very much focused on implementation and trying to close the gap to 2030. We will have the latest figures. There has been a significant consideration in the round, and a big part of it was consultation with the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC. We have all of that feedback and analysis.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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I am sorry. Ms Buckley can correct me if I am wrong but is the climate action plan for 2026 not about setting out the things that should happen this year? It is not about 2027, it is about this year. It is the annual plan.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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But it is a plan for the year.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
It is not particularly, because the vast majority of measures taken under it are multi-annual measures in any event. We have to move towards a multi-annual approach to this because measures taken in an individual year tend not to be terribly impactful, whereas measures taken over many years have greater impact. As a result, that is what we intend to move to.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Last year, the plan did not come out until April. It sounds like we are looking at some time in July or August in the context of the new plan. Previously, plans were published in December for the following year, which would seem to make sense. If there is a plan for the following year, would it not be published in advance of that year? Would it not be good practice to publish it in advance of the year that the plan is for?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Yes, but the difficulty we have is the one Deputy McGrath pointed out. We are quite far off reaching our targets. The difficulty to date has been that we have been focused on producing an annual plan by a particular date and then reporting on it, as opposed to focusing on the measures that will give us the biggest impact and deliver the biggest reduction in greenhouse gases that we can achieve. The Minister has been working with us on trying to make climate action planning more impactful. To that end, we have been working with him on trying to do that in a different way, other than just in the way we have done heretofore, which is a case of "Here's a plan, here's quarterly reports, here's another plan, here's quarterly reports." At the same time, the EPA is telling us that we are not getting any closer to achieving our targets.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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I disagree that the reason we are not reaching our targets is because we have had too much reporting and that there is too much focus on reporting. The reason we are not meeting our targets is there is no political will from the Government to do it. That is my opinion, but, obviously, in a sense, that is political and Ms Buckley is probably not in a position to comment on it.
When I asked a question in January, the Minister kind of casually said that we are not going to reach our targets. Up until that point, whenever we said, "It seems to us we are not going to reach these targets - we have these supposedly legally binding targets - but it doesn't look as if are going to reach them. What are you going to do about it?", the Government always said "Well, these are legally binding targets and we're going to reach them." Then, casually - the Dáil was not in session - this was in early January, the Minister kind of dropped the information that we are not going to reach them. Everybody knew that we were not going to reach them, because there is not the political will to reach them. Did that flow from discussion within the Department or, alternatively, did it have an impact on its approach, whereby it is not really under pressure to reach the targets any more because the Minister said that we would not reach them?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I suspect - without recalling the particular comments - that what the Minister actually said was that we are not going to reach our targets without leaning into additional delivery and doing more impactful things, because that is what he has been saying to us. To that end, he has been asking us to try to revise our approach to do more impactful climate action plans that will get us closer to delivering on those targets. It is undoubtedly the case that it has involved a shift in our approach. The Deputy must bear in mind - and Mr. Quinlan has spoken about this - that we needed to talk to the CCAC and to our stakeholders. That has all been done. We will be in a position to move to that revised approach to the climate action plan.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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I do not think Mr. Quinlan is accurate in terms of the way the Minister said it. He did not say it in a way which suggested that we are currently not on track and that, therefore, we needed to up it a gear; he said we are not going to reach the targets. He said we are going to miss them by a somewhat significant margin.
In terms what it will cost, after being pushed, Ms Buckley kind of accepted that it could cost billions. I presume she is aware of the joint study by the CCAC and IFAC, which projects that it could cost between €8 billion and €26 billion. Does she agree with that estimate of the cost if we continue on the track we are on and miss our targets by a substantial margin? Are those the kinds of amounts were faced with paying in just a few years' time?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We have never stated that we agree with that estimate. There is a really good reason for that, as I have already explained. First, we do not know how close we are going to be to our targets. We do not know what other member states are going to achieve in terms of their targets. We do not know how many carbon credits will be available. We do not know how many countries will be chasing them. We do not know what prices are going to be. We do not know if the same system is still going to be in place in 2032. To be honest, that is a very interesting estimate by the CCAC and IFAC. They are both Government bodies. I am not going to deny that, but we could not possibly give a credible figure to compliance costs at this point.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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When will Ms Buckley do that?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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We are facing this massive bill for the public and Ms Buckley is not going to estimate how much it is going to cost us until the point that it costs us that much money and then where are we going to get this money from?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Will Ms Buckley refuse to do so up until the point that we are actually fined some horrendous amount of money? Will she not be providing any estimate?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Or they could be extraordinarily expensive as a consequence of a small number being available and almost everybody meeting their target, or is it the case that the Department and the Government-----
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Exactly. That is what I think the Government is banking on.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Is the Department not just banking on the fact that no one is going to reach these targets and everyone is going to agree to effectively forget about them-----
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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-----and our children and grandchildren will pay the price for it?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We are already in discussions with the European Commission about how the climate system will work in the future. We are also discussing how investments in Ireland in necessary climate action could potentially help us meet those targets. It is an elaborate European system. It will take member states, large and small, to agree to change it, if it is to be changed. In the meantime, we cannot give an estimate.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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I want to move on to measures that will have an impact. What is Ms Buckley's assessment of how the one-stop-shop system has been operating?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Yes.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The SEAI has been increasing the number of one-stop shops and the number of participants in them, which is a necessary thing, as one of the big constraints in the delivery of retrofitting is the available labour and number of contractors signed up to it. It is definitely the model approach. We support the SEAI in doing it but it does need to expand it and make sure that it is working effectively.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Were some of the changes that were announced to the grants in mid-January, for example, the availability of the grant relating to windows and doors, which was not previously available to many people, kind of a recognition of the problems with the one-stop-shop approach?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
It is more that the introduction of the passport approach, specifically the windows and doors, was a recognition that by asking people to take on a very large project and possibly leave their homes to do it when housing is tricky to obtain might be a bit too much of an ask. What we needed to do was move people along the retrofitting journey and do so in chunks.
The one-stop shop works for some people. Let us face it: we have a lot of people doing that, but the passport approach allows people to move along that journey in a more staged way and possibly a more affordable way in that they can do one bit this year and another bit in two years' time or whenever.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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In terms of this being the model, it seems that the problem with the one-stop-shop approach is that there is an overall contractor and a is grant available for project management. They charge more for the project management and they normally do not employ labour directly. It might be that they specialise in external wall insulation and they do that bit themselves, but they just get other subcontractors to do the attic, windows and doors, the heat pump and so on. This means that there are various contractors involved, all of whom have to make profits. Would it not be simpler to have a State-driven approach? If there were such an approach, we could work estate by estate, which would bring about massive efficiencies, as opposed to having a market and putting all of these grants into it, which means that the price goes up.
The idea is that we are incentivising more companies to come into it. Is this not all a relatively inefficient way of doing it compared with saying that this is urgent and we need a State company to drive it?
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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Both. The State doing it would facilitate doing an estate-by-estate approach, as in, set up a major Semi-state retrofitting company which does it and employs people directly, so there are not these layers of contractors and the mess that creates.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
The SEAI is piloting an estate-by-estate approach. Even in mixed tenure estates, private people are needed to do it alongside, but there may well be efficiencies from an estate-by-estate approach. Establishing a State company to do retrofits is way above my pay grade, but the five years it would take us to establish it and get it staffed up might mean we would miss our targets on that alone.
Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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We do not have the stock while we are doing it.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank our witnesses. I will start with the CRU. I do not know who the appropriate person to ask is. Maybe it is Mr. Mulligan. The International Energy Agency, IEA, in October 2025, before the invasion of Iran, found that Ireland was an outlier in the pass-through of the wholesale cost of energy to the retail price. The Minister, answering this very recently, indicated that, notwithstanding the fact that the CRU is an independent regulatory body, it is looking at this issue and working with the consumer protection agency and with Ms Buckley's affordability group. What can Mr. Mulligan tell us what the CRU is looking at? Why is there a differential and what can he say to us in respect of it? What kind of outcomes does he envisage will arise from the investigation the CRU is carrying out?
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
I thank the Deputy. I will hand over to my colleague in a minute to talk about the gas market generally, which is the root cause of the wholesale market issues that the IEA would talk about. Last Monday week, we published a document, the title of which is the CRU Interim Review of the Electricity and Gas Retail Markets. That paper, if the Deputy has not read it, is a very interesting paper to explain the nature of our bills and what drives them. A key element is the wholesale cost that we are talking about. There are pretty much four components of our bill. One is the distribution and transmission network tariff, which is what ESB and EirGrid do. Then, we have the wholesale market and wholesale gas price which drives that, which Mr. Melvin will talk about in a minute. We have other costs around the imperfections in the PSO levy, VAT, and the costs of retailers that compete in the market.
Our interim report, which was last Monday week, concluded, working in collaboration with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, that there is more or less effective competition in the market and that there are sufficient retailers in the market to drive that competition. We will do a lot more coverage over the next months and have another report by the end of the year. Our initial conclusion is that, structurally, the market is working okay. We have competition in the market, but we absolutely have an issue with the input costs from the generation of electricity, which is mainly driven by gas, especially, as the Secretary General alluded to earlier, when the wind and solar energy, which can be 40% to 80%, are not available, then we have gas. Gas has a worldwide commodity price. We purchase it from the UK. The UK price and our price are broadly similar, except for its transportation costs from the UK to here. I will get Mr. Melvin to explain how that works.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Before he does that, is Mr. Mulligan's early conclusion that it is back to the same story and the input of the retail cost is because of our sources of energy? What about this pass-through between the wholesale and retail? Why is Ireland, according to this report in October, so uniquely different? Lots of European countries are very expensive. We all know the cost of energy. It is not like Ireland is the only expensive one, but we are the most expensive, and the gap in pass-through from wholesale to retail is the largest. What makes us so uniquely different?
Mr. Fergus O'Toole:
We looked at the IEA report and we were not too sure of the exact source of its information and exactly what it was based on. In our analysis, we looked at the build-up of costs over the last number of years and the prices in the market. We were trying to track that change between the wholesale price and the retail price. We found that, because of the way that suppliers hedge, the changes in the wholesale market pass through to retail prices but they are delayed because of that hedge, in the same way that we have seen wholesale prices increase significantly, but there have not been significant retail price changes, but in time, those prices will feed through.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Why are they delayed in an Irish market vis-à-vis other European markets?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is there a role for the CRU with respect to how those hedges take place and the delays in getting consumer prices down?
Mr. Fergus O'Toole:
The hedges provide stability in retail markets, which many customers want. They do not want their prices jumping up and down. They like knowing what is going to happen over the next 12 months. The hedges smooth out the changes but do not prevent price changes in the wholesale market from feeding through. Electric Ireland launched its dynamic tariff yesterday, and if customers want that immediate feed-through, there are now dynamic tariffs in the market that reflect the wholesale market and change day to day, so if people feel they want to have their prices closely reflect wholesale market changes, they can move onto dynamic tariffs.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Are there any learnings from a report like that, which says Ireland is the most expensive and the slowest when it comes to wholesale to retail? Where does that fall when it comes to the CRU's responsibility? Is it just another report that the CRU looks at which reinforces what it already knows, or does it drive the CRU into action in a way that could result in consumer prices going down?
Mr. John Melvin:
That is part of the report that Mr. Mulligan and Mr. O'Toole referred to. It is section 5. When the Deputy speaks to wholesale prices passing more slowly through to retail in Ireland, that is a good thing. When wholesale prices shot up, like they did when Russia invaded Ukraine, they went to seven or eight times what they had been before. In Ireland, measured across the market, that passed through more slowly than in a significant number of other jurisdictions. In Great Britain, for example-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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So it works both ways. If prices go up-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I have a little bit of time. Are there any learnings for Ireland? I take it the answer is "No", and that we are better off having a long pass-through from wholesale to retail, or is it "Yes" or somewhere in between?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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To Ms Buckley, some of the things that have come from this meeting are that the Department did not spend loads of money that it had available to it, it did not regulate district heating in the way it is supposed to, and we have not published a climate action plan when we are halfway through the year. There seem to be many structural answers. I understand our role in the committee is to find all the problems and ask the Department about loads of them. I am sure that many good things are going on at the same time. Ms Buckley said in respect of the market fund that one reason the Department had not spent the money is because it relates to the carbon tax, how the carbon tax spends its money and that there would be some element of duplication. Ms Buckley said it is great that we have a bit of money now and we are doing the affordability report, but we could look at that the other way. If we had spent more money on insulation, solar panels and grants for people, the cost that the consumer is now paying would be lower. How does she square that? What is the argument against spending the money that we had?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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How long was the money sitting in the account? When did the Department get to the figure we are at now? Has the money been there for two or two and a half years?
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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A year.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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So it has been sitting in this account for two years.
Would the Department have advised, for example, that it has a great scheme here now and asked that more money be put into that? I am only trying to establish whether there was someone saying not to do that as it will cause inflation and too much money is being given.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
It was not that. We have very substantial funding for residential retrofit through the carbon tax and we are keeping pressure under the SEAI to spend as much of that as we can. There are capacity constraints in the residential retrofit market as just discussed so it was not necessarily that we said here is another €150 million, we will just shove it straight in there and spend it this year, because it probably would not then get spent. Where we had a live scheme where additional funding was going to make a real impact, which was the SME retrofit, we said let us spend this fund there because it gives real added value.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is a small amount but-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In comparison to how much is sitting in the account. It is a significant investment.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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What is the Department waiting for? It is the one creating schemes. I mean no disrespect but it is the Department that comes up with the schemes with the direction of the Minister.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is the Department frustrated with other Departments because they did not come to it and ask for some of that money for some great schemes they have to improve our outlook in terms of climate change?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I cannot say that. We were always conscious of having the market cap funding there and we were working on whether there were particular ways we could use it to supplement the existing funding we had in carbon tax that would not overstress the SEAI and would not cause it to fall over or would not do other things. The Minister then established the national energy affordability task force and now we have that funding to support the work of that task force so it is a-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Can Ms Buckley understand people sitting at home who are maybe watching this committee and who want to do the right thing? They want to put a few solar panels on the roof, get a battery and do some insulation for their homes but they cannot afford it because the grants are not sufficient for them. Then they find out that the Department has had €100-odd million sitting in a bank account while their energy prices have been going up. We are politicians. We knock on the doors. That is not her responsibility but can she understand how frustrating that must be for the outside world watching it?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I do not deny how frustrating it must be but what we need to do with that under the terms of the Act is give something additional. The Deputy is essentially suggesting we increase the grant for solar panels. We are not going to increase the number of solar panels that way. There is only such so much capacity in the State to install these.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I am just suggesting.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
So we have to look through the kind of the pipe that the money goes through as well. It is not that we were sitting on the money and refusing to spend it. We were looking at available schemes to spend it. Nothing other than the non-domestic retrofit came through and got to kind of shovel-ready status. We are now at the point of saying we will have things we can spend it on and we know things as they come through and we get ministerial decisions and Government decisions-----
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Can Ms Buckley give us a flavour of what kind of things this money can be spent on?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I do not want to do so because it would pre-empt the work of the task force and I do not want to do that. It obviously what the Government and the Minister decide to do. Second, one of the unfortunate effects of saying in a room like this that there might be extra grants for something is there can be an effect where people will sit back and wait to see what extra is coming. We do not want them to do that. We want them to apply to the SEAI to get their residential retrofit done.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Given that the money has been sitting in a bank account for the past two years, I am not sure the Department is going to create the expectation that a whole bunch of money is going to be flowing into people's bank accounts.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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This is a crisis. We are in the middle of an energy crisis.
James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We should be putting every euro of that money towards measures to better improve people's homes regardless of whether they are renting or living in a house they own and to get them off the grid be that through solar or battery storage, whatever it takes. That should be the meitheal. That is what we should be targeting towards. If Ms Buckley comes back next year, would she be hopeful that a lot of this money will have been allocated towards that?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Ms Buckley for the work that she and her Department continue to do. It is really important work. The Department of Education and Youth has a reported overspend and we have seen reports that other Departments will be levied to make up for that overspend. What conversations has the Department had regards to that? How high will the levy on the Department be?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We have been written to by the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation advising us on foot of the Government decision that there will be a levy on current spend applied in respect of next year's budget. The levy on my current spend is approximately 1.4%. My finance team is starting to look at efficiencies and necessary measures that will be taken. I am shortly to have a meeting with my senior management team so we can all look at the efficiencies that will need to be made across the Department. Our current spend is not a huge amount of our departmental spend. Obviously, we have to protect things like pay and pensions so it is going to be quite challenging to find that level of expenditure reduction. I lived through the period of austerity so I know how painful these things can be. We will do the necessary work to try to find the efficiencies that are needed in this case.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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From that reporting, the figure of 1.4% seems to be on the relatively high end of the spectrum. Is that what Ms Buckley perceives it to be as well? Why is her Department on that end of the spectrum?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I would almost throw this comment down to my colleague from the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation but that might be a bit unfair so I will just say that a number of areas of current expenditure were protected. None of those areas of current expenditure are in my area so I presume I was just was not protected in any way and, therefore, my full current expenditure was encompassed
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I do not know the inner workings. Is there a mechanism by which the Department can say "no thank you, we're not going to do that" or is it obliged to fulfil on that 1.4%?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Do we have a sum for what that 1.4% would look like?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is it unfair of me to join the dots when we see such a consistent underspend in so many subheads that the Minister of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation and his Department are looking at that and saying "well they can probably afford to lose some of that"?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I do not think there is any particular correlation. I think every Department got a letter like this, except possibly the ones that had overspent. It is not that at all. We work very closely with the Department of public expenditure on a day-to-day basis on how our budget and Estimate are evolving. Say we had put aside €2 million to pay legal fees for foreshore licence challenges and have not yet got the demand from the State Claims Agency, the Department of public expenditure will know that. It will know there is a reason for our underspend. We also then tend to have overspends in other areas. For example, we are looking at spending more money around encouraging people to reduce their energy use to cost save. As we have had to find new money within my budget to put towards a publicity campaign around that as part of the response to the Strait of Hormuz situation, we are moving money around to enable that. Again, we work very closely with Mr. Dormer and his colleagues to make sure that they are fully familiar with and know the moving parts in what is an incredibly complex budget. With its multiple capital funds, my budget is probably one of the more complex ones in terms of capital anyway. It is very close ongoing work. I do not think there will be any particular concerns. Perhaps Mr. Dormer can speak for himself but the Department of public expenditure knows how we are spending the money, where we are spending the money and how much money we are spending, so it is not the case that we are in any way going outside our guidelines.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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My next question is for Mr. Dormer. Where does this Department rank in terms of that spectrum? Is it on the top end? Is the figure the highest that is being levied and if so, why?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What percentage amounts?
Mr. Eoin Dormer:
In percentage amounts, it is probably up around the top end but in monetary amounts, it is probably towards the lower end. The calculation is a function of having to protect certain areas due to Government priorities but also having enough money to add up to generate the levy. We will probably be engaging earlier than we otherwise would with some colleagues in the Department because of the need to look at efficiencies and savings and that will be happening fairly soon. There is lots of regular engagement. It is a good relationship.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What Departments would be higher than this Department in terms of the levy that is coming their way?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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If Mr. Dormer could furnish the committee with that, that-----
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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-----would be really useful information. I thank him.
With regard to the emergency alert system, I ask the witnesses to tell me if I am getting this wrong because I probably am. Out of the 2024 budget of €3 million, €69,000 was spent on this system. Out of the 2025 budget of €2.5 million, the spend was €400,000. Then the fine of €4.5 million came in 2024. Did we give back to the Exchequer the funds we did not spend on developing the system because of the fine? Did we use the programme spend to pay the fine that came?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We certainly had to find the amount of the fine from within our own budget, and it is current. Anywhere there would have been current underspends, we would have pulled money from across the Department to ensure that we could pay that fine. Now, the fact that there was not money spent on introducing the emergency call system was to do with difficulties within procurement and things like that. It was not that we deliberately did not do the system to pay the fine. That was not the way it worked. When something like a European Court of Justice fine occurs, basically what happens is that the Department of public expenditure and reform quite rightly says, "That is your ticket. You have to find the money." That is right and good because, obviously, the issue came from within the Department. We moved money around, with the agreement of the Department of public expenditure and reform, within our current spend to make sure that we had that money available. That being said-----
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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One equated to the other.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Mr. McCormack said a more permanent solution is in place.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What is the overall budget for that on completion?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is it much more than what was initially budgeted for? Ballpark?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Yes.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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That is the bit I am trying to figure out. The Department gives back to the Exchequer underspends in some areas, so where does it find it then?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Chair, if I may have 30 seconds, if you do not mind-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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You still have 30 seconds on your clock.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Thank you, Chair. Anyone who has not been to Kerdiffstown needs to go to Kerdiffstown.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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It is one of the most phenomenal pieces of work undertaken across many Departments and the local authority. It is how you do it right. I have lost matches on those pitches and I have won matches on those pitches, but it is a piece of work that has a wonderful legacy. How much in total did Kerdiffstown cost?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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When the Department returns, I think, €12 million under that scheme in 2024, it is probably hard, given the scale of what Kerdiffstown was. How much does it cost then to run Kerdiffstown every year, and the maintenance of it, given what is underneath?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I understand that but I am sure Ms Buckley is aware of the cost. What is the cost?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Who takes the burden of that cost?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Where would it take that money from?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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As in, there was no agreement when the project-----
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I am only curious because, having been a councillor, I know how tight budgets are. When this wonderful amenity comes, given what it sits on, it is so dynamic. Is there a more centralised piece that we could consider funding-wise to ensure its legacy actually remains?
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Absolutely.
Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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It is wonderful.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have a number of questions myself, first to Mr. Mulligan. In terms of the number of households currently in arrears on their energy bills, I have the figures here for February. He might-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, that is for February. Do you have the figure for March?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. There have been preliminary figures there. Is-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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In the region of 317,000 domestic households are currently in arrears. Do we have updated disconnection figures? I have the figure for February - 154.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are no updates, but they are up considerably on that timeframe of January and February of this year, in comparison to last year.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There is a massive increase there. I think there is a 60% increase in disconnections.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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A big problem, and the figures for households in arrears over 90 days are continuing to increase. What are the figures for February?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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They are in your report. It answers those questions. Again, they are going, unfortunately, in the wrong direction.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will ask a question about disconnections. Do you think 154 households being disconnected in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and an energy crisis is justifiable?
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
There is a very significant customer handbook. Again, Mr. O'Toole can speak to it more. We have and there were an awful lot of customer protection measures put in place post the war in Ukraine. We have extended them year on year since. There is a big review going on this summer. Those disconnections are the very last resort. We work with the retailers-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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A review this summer is of little comfort to those who have been disconnected. Do you think there should be a ban on disconnections?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Is the review that is ongoing going to look at a ban in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis on-----
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
Again, I do not think we would ban disconnections because there are genuine disconnections. What we are looking at is ensuring that vulnerable users and those who need it, who genuinely need heating and electricity, are not cut off, and there are measures in place to ensure that does not happen for those who are most in need.
We work with the retailers like Electric Ireland and Energia consistently and the handbook prohibits any disconnections.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I want to turn to the Market Cap Fund that was backdated to December 2022 up to June 2023. Some €190 million was taken in over the course of those months. The primary purpose was to cap profits from the energy companies. What was the designated purpose of the funds? Where was that money to go? Who were the primary beneficiaries?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Vulnerable households.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Households such as those we have touched on, and businesses. There were 154 disconnections in February and 317,000 households in arrears. I am looking back on the figures for 2023. In June 2023, how many households would you imagine were in arrears with their bills?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I think it was 250,000. There has been an increase of nearly 70,000 in households in arrears, but no actions for the utilisation of that money to help those households. The only measures that did come forward were to benefit businesses, which I agree are struggling and continue to struggle. Do the officials think that is fair on the householders?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I am talking about this specific fund, and the specific purpose of this fund was to help alleviate the massive pressures that those 317,000 households are currently experiencing. Rather than bring forward measures to do that, though, a large proportion of the money has sat in a bank account for nearly three years. The only actions coming out of it were to benefit business. Even at that, it has only been a small proportion. What types of business have benefited and how is that analysed?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Can we get a breakdown of all of those businesses that have benefited?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Is it solely businesses?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Were there any other beneficiaries other than businesses?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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That would be really useful. That large pot of money is sitting there not benefiting the people it was supposed to. On businesses, I would like to see it. I imagine some of those businesses benefiting from this fund are very viable and profitable. It is important that we get line of sight as to who actually benefited from that particular fund. There is a piece of work going on now, three years after this money landed in bank accounts. Families cannot wait until completion of that work or for whatever budgetary measures are taken, or not taken, in budget 2027. Why is that money not being utilised in the here and now when families are having their electricity cut off and 317,000 families are in arrears? Surely there are immediate actions that could be taken. What analysis has been done by the Department?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are existing schemes, though, such as the warmer homes scheme, and local authorities are retrofitting social housing, which is for some of the most vulnerable people in the State. Was there a budget increase to see more social houses retrofitted in terms of energy efficiency? Was there an ask there? I doubt it because it has not materialised. I talk to local authorities across the board, including Wicklow County Council, which say they do not get sufficient funding to ensure that some of the most deficient properties in their stock are addressed. I am just pointing that out. I do not expect Ms Buckley to have the answer on that.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Absolutely. Ms Buckley said a call went out to Departments to come forward with proposed actions. I am just pointing out a serious failure where there are many ways that this money should and could have been utilised. Families cannot afford to wait until budget 2027 for a decision on whether there will be measures to benefit them.
On CRU investigations into excessive profits from the sky-high electricity and gas bills, while not all households are benefiting from chances to reduce energy costs, the commission stated in the interim report requested by the Government that competition in Ireland's retail electricity and gas markets was functioning reasonably well and generating rivalry among companies. The report also suggested that the average householder could save €395 on electricity and €184 on gas a year by switching tariffs. I do not know how you can say that companies are not making excessive profits. Data published last week by the European Commission's data arm, Eurostat, suggested that Ireland had the highest electricity prices in the bloc last year, with consumers here paying 40 cent per kWh on average compared to the European average of 28.9 cent, a €480 difference. How can the officials stand over their report, which says that there are no excessive profits when the facts state differently?
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
We would not disagree with what Eurostat has said. The facts are that a high price does not equate to excess profits. The high price is explained in our report. It is a high price. It is very high compared to other European countries, there is no denying that, but we see the reasons for it. It is genuinely down to the nature of our topography and our demographics in Ireland. We are a very small island economy with a very dispersed population. The distribution network of ESB, as the Cathaoirleach knows, in Wicklow and other parts of the country serves a very rural population. A third of our population is in one-off housing. It is very expensive to build networks to that. It is a key driver. As my colleagues have explained, the wholesale gas price we are subject to is extremely high, as it is in Britain. Unfortunately, many of these things constitute a very high bill for our customers.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Where are energy prices at currently in comparison to when the Market Cap Fund was introduced in 2023?
Mr. John Melvin:
I would start with 2019. Gas is a big determinant of price. Gas in 2019 was around 36 cent a therm. A therm is a unit of energy used in gas. The first 51 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, gas was 261 cent a therm. For the first 51 days after the US-Iran events commenced on 28 February, it was around 139 cents a therm. The immediate aftermath of Russia-Ukraine was about 1.8 times what it is now. Going back to 2019, the price of gas is significantly higher than it was before Covid.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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And electricity?
Mr. John Melvin:
I do not have an electricity price in 2019. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the price was €251 per MWh, which was about 1.8 times the equivalent price in the first 51 days since US-Iran. That was €139 in the recent past. We just took a number of trading days from the start of one incident to some day last week.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Some of those spikes have dipped. They are back up again. The Market Cap Fund was introduced when they were at the peak.
Is there an argument for another windfall tax be put on the energy companies at this point?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. I am asking from the CRU perspective. Given the data we currently have, are we near a level that, I suppose-----
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
As Mr. Melvin has said, a Chathaoirligh, we are not near the levels we were at post the invasion of Ukraine, with the numbers we have said there. There was definitely a justification back then from those numbers and it was a very successful outcome with over €190 million gathered so far, which will go to good causes.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It was successful in that the money came in. It was not successful in that it has not gone out to the people who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of it-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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-----so it was successful to one degree and a complete failure in another. I will leave it at that for now.
I will open it up again to members for a second round of short supplementary questions, if that is okay. Deputy Bennett is up first.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Thank you, a Chathaoirligh. I want to go back into the questions I asked earlier just to finish off. I did not get some final answers on them. What was the target for vehicle chargers in 2025 and have we met it?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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So it is the Department of Transport.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. I will have to send the question to it.
On EirGrid, I brought up beforehand that it was receiving funds from the electric companies. Does Ms Buckley's Department audit that, or who audits it?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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No, who audits EirGrid's accounts?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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All right, because I had-----
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is that run through the Department?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
It is a commercial semi-State under the auspices of my Department. It is like the ESB. It runs its own commercial affairs. Its corporate governance affairs are run through us, again a bit like the ESB. If the ESB wants to do any major capital expenditure ministerial consents can be needed under the relevant Acts.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. How much money has EirGrid spent since it came into existence?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Who has that detail?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Spent since it came into existence. How much money has it taken from that cap fund? How much has it had in its accounts?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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EirGrid is spending it. It has spent-----
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, but I would just like to see the income and expenditure that have gone through EirGrid's accounts since it was established.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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We have an issue at this committee where there are vast amounts of public money out there and we have no way to see what is in those accounts and how it is being spent. That is my issue with EirGrid. Nobody seems to know where the money goes.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. Maybe the CRU-----
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Maybe Mr. Mulligan can answer me.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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So EirGrid has 25 years of money coming from the cap fund. Is that correct?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Where does it get the money then?
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
EirGrid is our transmission system operator. It runs our grid on behalf of the State in Dublin, Kerry, Donegal and all over the country. It works in co-operation with ESBN, which runs the distribution network. Those two companies are responsible for every wire and pylon that goes to every single house in the country. They spend all the money under regulation from CRU as the regulator and then we set the tariffs by which they recover money from consumers to cover that cost. The only thing they are allowed recover is what we call a reasonable rate of return. It is in the single digits at 3% or 4% per annum, which is common across Europe. They are regulated entities. As they are monopoly companies we regulate their costs and their revenues to ensure there are no supernormal profits or any of that sort of thing and that they work efficiently. As I said, the annual accounts are audited. We get a copy of those every year, as we do with ESBN and ESB Group. We do not audit them ourselves but we take those numbers into our regulatory system of models and set prices on that basis.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, so how could I get some transparency here so I could see EirGrid's accounts?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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That is brilliant. I thank Ms Buckley.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I have a final question. Is any other country in Europe charging 30% tariffs on electricity?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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At 30%.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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So are we one of the highest?
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
We one of the highest. Germany is very close to us. We are in the top five countries in terms of it. That is what the Cathaoirleach was referring to earlier. Our network tariffs are much higher compared with other member states. That is back to our one-off housing and the cost of doing business in Ireland when it comes to buying equipment, generators and all the things we need to do in terms of interconnection.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I do not know why the electricity companies would be entitled to get 30% tariffs when they are making huge profits. Every year you see the huge profits they make, so why are they getting 30% tariffs?
Mr. Fergal Mulligan:
They do not make huge profits. They make what is called a regulated return, which we regulate, which is in the 3% or 4% bracket. Their profits are regulated and those profits are reinvested, generally, or returned to the State by a dividend. They are commercial semi-State companies not commercial companies with money going abroad or anything like that. ESB and EirGrid are commercial semi-States. It is either reinvested in the business or it is returned to the State via dividend.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is returned to the State at a huge loss to consumers. Consumers are paying out that money but the State is getting it back.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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But then the State has a say in the prices being charged and there is a huge dividend going back to the State.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Did Mr. Mulligan not just tell me they do not make profits as it goes back to the State?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. I thank the witnesses.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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There are two things I want to get through in the few minutes. The first is residential retrofit targets. What is the target for retrofitting homes by 2030?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Yes.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is that done or is that the target?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Okay, so 400,000 to 500,000 homes by 2030. Is that what we are looking at?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Are we on track to meet that target? Do we have enough qualified workers in the industry to meet the targets by 2030?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
I am sorry. I swapped these two and occasionally I get confused as to who is to answer. The Deputy asked specifically about the workforce. Certainly there is a challenge about having the necessary workforce along with the very demanding challenge of building houses. We are working with our colleagues in the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to see if we can improve apprenticeships and things like that. It is a big challenge to try to make sure we have enough workers to do both retrofits of existing homes and the building out of new homes.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That is actually where I was going. It is essential that some of the money the Department is sitting on is inputted to funding the workers we need to deliver these homes by 2030, and, again, a sense of urgency is required here. We are coming up to the halfway mark in 2026.
Mr. Barry Quinlan:
In fact, the spending on retrofitting and the output has significantly ramped up. There are huge targets for that. It is one of the areas we need to work on, but it has already massively ramped up. I do not know if Mr. Carroll has the exact figures, but it has increased hugely over the last three years.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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At various scales. The Comptroller and Auditor General wishes to come in.
Mr. Seamus McCarthy:
On the point about apprenticeships, training and skilling, the Department of further and higher education will be in with the committee in a couple of weeks, and I have also drawn attention to the fact that substantial funding is sitting in the National Training Fund, which is available for exactly the kind of training mentioned.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It is just sitting there. That is not encouraging.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. McCarthy, but it leaves more concerns.
Very briefly, in relation to grid capacity, there is a critical risk in this regard. How did we get here? Did the Department not project demand? Why are we where we are and when will it be resolved?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
That is an extremely good question. The fact is that grids all over Europe and the world are having to be upgraded to meet the electrification demand that comes with moving from being a petrostate to being an electrostate, which is the destination we are aiming for.
The estimates for grid capacity are done by a combination of actions, but involving primarily EirGrid in its annual projections forward. It also looks at generation capacity. It has to give us its estimates of what needs to be done, and then that information goes in, as part of the price review process, into the CRU. It then looks at those figures and allocates money between ESBN and EirGrid to be spent on the necessary grid work.
To be fair to EirGrid, it has had challenges about delivery, particularly of some of the major high-voltage lines. It does run into local community difficulties because people want these lines to be undergrounded, but for technical reasons they have to be overground. EirGrid does run into local community difficulties and planning and consenting difficulties. The two companies are now working extremely hard on the delivery of the 600 or so projects needed over the next five years. We had a meeting with them on Tuesday, along with the Minister, where we looked at the 60 highest priority projects across the transmission system operator, TSO, and distribution system operator, DSO, contexts, that will deliver about 85% of the value. They are working extremely hard to deliver those into the system so we can build houses, increase our economy and keep the social benefits of having electricity, as well as improving it. There is €1 billion in the PR6 funding approved by CRU to improve the resilience of the grid following the effects of Storm Éowyn. That is also very important.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The takeaway I am getting there is that Ms Buckley is blaming EirGrid for not being future-focused enough and not projecting the figures correctly.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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We are not just a bit off. We are at a critical stage now.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
That being said, electricity demand has grown by 50% in this country over the last ten years, and the ESB and EirGrid have kept pace, so they have done the job we have asked them to do. The way it was described to me in the last couple of days is that they are now sweating the asset as much as they can to keep pace with demand over the next five years. We do, though, need to start building the grid and high-voltage grid across the country. It is critically important, therefore, that we deliver projects like the North-South interconnector and other projects across the country so we can connect power to demand. That grid will have to be built out over the next 15 years.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I could not agree more. I just want to see it happen.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Buckley.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It was said that EirGrid cannot go underground, but lines did go underground in lots of other countries. I cannot understand why it cannot go underground here.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Of course, we know we need extra electricity for people in counties Cavan, Monaghan and Meath, for example, but the lines do have to go underground. I just feel that EirGrid has wasted a lot of time and money by not putting these lines underground.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It has spent it now anyway in 20 years.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I know. I thank Ms Buckley.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have a number of questions. One of the members mentioned the carbon tax fund earlier. Ms Buckley said the Department receives the money and does not collect it. It is divided out. In his 2024 report, the Comptroller and Auditor General drew attention to-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Was it? I am sorry. The report drew attention to the fact that only 61% of the funds went directly to environmental and climate-specific subheads.
Mr. Seamus McCarthy:
The point was that we could only verify 61% of it had gone to environmentally-connected subheads. The point also made in that report was that because it was going through appropriation accounts, if the money was not used in the year, then any surplus or balance left had to be surrendered. Effectively, the carbon fund is not actually ring-fenced but hypothecated. It is a looser arrangement, and then, because it follows through the normal appropriation accounts, when it gets surrendered, it gets surrendered.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. That was in 2023. Was there any further analysis of that subsequently?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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We will have that Department in with us in a few weeks.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I just want to touch on another issue now in relation to landfill remediation and specifically what was described as the largest illegal dump ever discovered in the State, which operated between 1979 and 2001. It contained all sorts of equipment, medical, construction and domestic waste and all sorts of very toxic materials, which caused significant leakage into adjoining watercourses, including the River Slaney. Syringes, drip bags and surgical gowns and industrial chemicals were also found in it. Quite bizarrely, Wicklow County Council said it discovered it in 2001, despite the fact that I think it has emerged that it had been using it for many years up to then. We are 25 years on from when the largest illegal landfill dump was ever discovered in the State and it is still in place. From responses to parliamentary questions, I know over €7.2 million has been spent to date via departmental allocations. This does not include legal expenditure and expenditure for other areas. I would like to get an update on this location at Whitestown, near Baltinglass in County Wicklow.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We have regular meetings with Wicklow County Council on this issue. The Cathaoirleach will probably be aware that there are still ongoing legal proceedings and a permitting process, so I will not comment on that aspect for fear of impacting it. We have set aside a provision of €8.25 million this year to support work being done in terms of tendering processes for capital works and material outlets for the council.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What are the capital works?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Site acquisition has been done because there was some issue about landownership. That took place in November 2024, and we did not provide any assistance with it. Wicklow County Council estimates that the remediation of Whitestown will cost between €32 million and €38 million to be completed by the end of 2031. Tendering processes for capital works and material outlets were undertaken by the council last year, so we have put in place a provision to allow that to take place. Screening, lab testing, site mobilisation and preparatory works have been undertaken thus far in 2026 and regular update meetings between the Department, Wicklow County Council and the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, take place monthly to facilitate appropriate monitoring of progress, financial planning and landfill capacity forecasting. This is because we will, obviously, have to find somewhere to put the waste.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There are so many failures in relation to the approach to dealing with this illegal landfill, so much so that at one of the hearings, when it went to the High Court in 2017, the High Court described a previous attempt made by Wicklow County Council to remediate the site at a cost of €3.9 million as a botched job.
It noted that 93% of the waste still remained on site. Here we are in 2026. I think the remediation plan is signed off on - Ms Buckley can correct me if I am wrong on that. Twenty-five years later, we are at a point where we may be in a position to go in and start removing some of the material. Ms Buckley mentioned a figure of between €32 and €38 million to remediate the site. That does not include the cost to the Department to date, which is €7.2 million.
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
There have been a lot of costs. As the Cathaoirleach said, under the oversight of the EPA, a solution was put in place in 2012 and the waste was capped. A case was taken to the court saying that that was not in compliance with EU law. Now we have to move to this different approach, which is to remove the waste. This is much more challenging because you have to make sure you are doing it safely and there is somewhere to put it. That is going to be a much more costly solution but it has to be undertaken on foot of the High Court order. As I say, we are putting in place funding and working very closely with Wicklow County Council.
I should say, there are probably a couple of hundred of these sites across Ireland. These are old pre-environmental standards landfills.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate that.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There has been a series of failures, given the fact that this has dragged on for 25 years just to get to a point where we may be in a position to go in and deal with the environmental pollution that has been ongoing there consistently, not just over the 25 years, but over the many decades when the dump was in use.
There is a figure of €38 million for remediation. How much has been spent to date? Do we have that figure across all of the work, including the cost to the EPA and the Department? Have we sight of the legal costs to date?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
We do not pay the legal costs. That would have to come from Wicklow County Council, so we do not have an estimate of those costs. I only have the figure that my Department has spent but we can aggregate that and seek to get some estimate of costs from the EPA also. That is no problem at all.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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If we could get the total figure, I think it is-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Unfortunately, it has proven near impossible to get any figure for costs from Wicklow County Council, which is unhelpful and does not give any confidence in the process to date or in transparency. Ultimately, it is about protecting the environment but also the taxpayer. There have been systemic failures at many levels. Millions of euro have been spent and still 93% of the waste remains in situ.
What ongoing monitoring, if any, is carried out? Who has responsibility? There are high levels of leachate going into the River Slaney. This is on the boundary of a special area of conservation.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have asked the EPA.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The EPA has said that the only part of the process it has been involved in is its review of the remediation plan.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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A full note. Ms Buckley alluded to the fact that the remaining 93% had to be removed from the site. Where is that going?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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That was the figure established in the High Court back in 2017, in that 93% of the material still remained on site. I will let the Comptroller and Auditor General in.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Could get a full briefing note on the issue?
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It is an issue of huge concern, not just for people in the locality, but also in terms of the environmental impacts, including on the River Slaney, which flows through Wicklow into Wexford. There is also the fact that this has dragged on for so long.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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What is expected to be the final figure? Ms Buckley gave a figure of €32 to €38 million.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. Ms Buckley might also provide a breakdown of the cost to date - the €7.2 million that has been given by the Department in grant allocations - and the specific purposes that the funding was allocated for on an annual basis.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. I got the annual figures for the grants from the Department to Wicklow County Council. It is just to establish the purpose of those grants.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The final issue I want to touch on briefly is that of foreshore licences. Do they come through Ms Buckley’s Department?
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
Essentially, no longer. We only have a residual function for foreshore licences. The vast majority were transferred to MARA on its establishment a couple of years ago. We have a legacy number of foreshore licences that we are working through – some difficult ones or dormant ones – to try to close them out.
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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If, for example, a coastal flood protection scheme was to get renourishment of materials-----
John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will follow that up separately in that case.
As there are no other questions, that concludes our engagement for today. I thank the Secretary General and her officials from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment for attending and the officials from the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation and the Comptroller and Auditor General for their attendance again.
Is it agreed that the clerk will seek any follow-up information and carry out any agreed actions arising from the meeting? Agreed.
The committee will meet next on Thursday, 28 May 2026 with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.