Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will try to get in as much as I can in the two minutes and seven seconds remaining. Last Friday, the Government made a big announcement about opening up. It was bringing things forward. Amazingly, there was no mention of travel to the islands. Singularly, it is still scheduled for 8 August. Families have members living on the mainland want to go home but who do not have permission to do so. Will the Minister tell us when the islands will be open to people to go back to their families, to those who own holiday homes on the islands to go to them and to tourists to visit? The islanders want to find out. It is terribly remiss of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport not to tell us.

I join in the call with regard to tourist attractions. We are told that people will be taking staycations. There is a big danger that it will not be economic for Kylemore Abbey, for example, to open this year.

The Minister was there recently. It is a big opening. There are massive overheads in running the place. Due to the visitor numbers it will not get this year, it will be very uneconomic to open for small numbers.

I wish to discuss the transition. People often talk about electricity when talking about transition. Electricity is fine but the problem is that it requires massive infrastructure. There is a simpler answer. It is indirect electricity using surplus energy - surplus renewable energy where, with electricity, one is using whatever is on the grid at the time, and that is hydrogen. I understand that a company on this island, in Ballymena, is examining producing hydrogen buses. Another company in the same part of the world is examining producing the hydrogen. Have there been talks about considering an all-Ireland approach to replacing all public bus vehicles on the island with hydrogen buses produced from renewable electricity? As the Minister knows, one takes the H₂, adds the O and one gets H₂O, which is water, therefore one does not get any carbon emissions. It is a huge opportunity for this island to act together. That issue must be examined.

Unfortunately, I have gone 12 seconds over my time.

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