Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It would be nice to believe the Government could absorb all the energy impact or that energy companies could be forced to absorb it but, in a small, open economy such as ours, that is fairyland talk. Could we see an immediate activation of economic resilience measures, among them an activation of the 1 million smart meters, only 40,000 of which have been activated; reasserting remote working as a priority; tackling the supply chain inefficiency that sees 25% of our food wasted; promoting vehicle sharing, given more than 90% of vehicles are idle every day; implementing lean energy; and activating 90,000 vacant homes? We have measures within our reach that we could work on immediately, and I urge the Government to develop a strategy in that area.

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