Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I accept the frustration Deputy Kelleher is expressing. When I went into this new Department that had been formed, the clean air strategy, the wind regulations, the renewable heat incentive scheme, the renewable electricity support scheme, both in terms of microgeneration and broadening the renewable mix, the national broadband plan, NBP, the flat rate bin charges, the mitigation plan and the adaptation were sitting there, so to speak, trying to be progressed. We have progressed all of those now. We will be bringing a memorandum to Government on the renewable electricity support scheme.

During all of this period we have had to deal with the challenges in regard to Brexit and the consequent knock-on issues to do with energy security, the challenges we talked about earlier in regard to An Post, the waste capacity crisis and the ongoing issues to do with RTÉ. A significant amount of work has been done in the past two years. It has been challenging to move this agenda forward, but we will have the renewable electricity support scheme operational next year. I want to see that operational as quickly as possible because there is the opportunity to ensure that some of that can feed into our 2020 targets. It must be remembered that the renewable electricity support scheme was always planned for our 2030 targets, not our 2020 targets. REFIT is there to meet our 2020 targets, and we are looking to see how we can release some of the blockages in the system to achieve as much as we can under that as well.

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