Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. We published the climate Bill earlier this week and it commits us to a 51% reduction in emissions between now and the end of 2030. In the main, the emissions come from transport, agriculture and buildings, including our homes, so retrofit will have to be a huge part of the way forward. There will be public consultation on this. We will need the proceeds from the carbon tax to help co-fund it. The two are inextricably linked. It is very ambitious because we will run into constraints. We need to build a lot of new public infrastructure in this country over the coming decade. We need to build a lot of housing and we also need to retrofit a lot of old housing. We will run into constraints regarding construction workers and this is why we are ramping up apprenticeships and doing more to encourage people to go into them.

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