Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

To answer directly, yes. We need much larger numbers and we need those 4,000 smart meters to be availed of as soon as possible. That is why I asked the Department to go back to the ESB and others to find out why the scheme is not going as quickly as we wanted. If necessary we will change the regulations to make it happen. While one should be careful, one does not want to create a static market while waiting for an alternative system. It is a matter of looking at the current rules to see if they can be adapted, not in a way that would disrupt the market but in order to make the process easier. We must do this and there is a variety of ways by which we can do it. Microgeneration is a crucial element within an overall distributed electricity generation mix which we must develop.

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