Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I genuinely welcome that response. I agree that we need a little time, although we should not take too much time. There is urgency but we need real consultation and buy-in. We need to tap into the expertise, knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm of communities and people who know about this matter. I must press my proposal, which has been given to me by others who know more about it than I do but which is a very good idea. I refer to the idea of district energy heating and local energy co-operatives. It requires joined-up thinking with Coillte, which, as I said to the Taoiseach some days ago, has 500,000 acres of land, as identified in the McCarthy report. The company believes the very narrow commercial wood-growing approach is just not viable for it, but it might be very viable for local communities to take some of that land at a peppercorn rent and develop projects thereon growing trees and creating other energy systems, such as small-scale hydroelectric and wind systems, thereby generating real employment. The Minister should seriously think about that and engage with the people proposing this.

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