Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Fitzpatrick. There is increased resistance to the idea of imposing a carbon tax on people who are not seeing the benefit and will not see a benefit for the foreseeable future. I am very concerned this plan to transition us away from fossil fuels to green energy and the elimination of the fossil fuels is in tatters. I say that because there is no joined-up thinking and there is no plan where we can see the annual targets that may be achieved. We have something that will be achieved in the next ten to 15 years but we do not know how we are going to get there. There is no step-by-step approach.

The deep retrofit scheme is still not in place and will not be in place until the end of this year. We all know that, as part of the warmer homes schemes, people must wait up to two years to get a survey done on their house, and these are the most vulnerable people who get the fuel allowance. In my own constituency, that the ESB is decommissioning a 49.9 MW wind farm at Derrybrien, which has generated green electricity to serve 44,000 homes since 2006, is something we need to examine very closely. I ask the Government to intercede and bring in emergency legislation to keep that vital green energy going. We have made a mess of it between planning and substitute consents. We need emergency planning to get that right. We need to hold on to what we have. At the same time while we are losing that green energy, we want to tax people in the constituency of Galway East for the fact they have no alternative.

I will give another fine example of how the plan is not working. A large number of people in this country have invested in installing microgeneration in their homes.

They did so on the premise and the promise from Government that they would receive payment for any excess electricity that went back into the grid. They were supposed to get paid since 1 July 2021. To date, free electricity has gone to the grid and consumers are charged an enormous price for it. The poor people who invested in microgeneration get nothing for it. They do not know how much is going out. It is not metered and there is no action to do so. This is making a mockery of the microgeneration scheme. When asked how it is working, people in my constituency say not to touch this with a 40 ft. pole, because it is all about putting in money to give something back, and getting no return for it.

Under the warmer homes scheme, the SEAI is continuing to install fossil fuel heating systems in houses for people in receipt of fuel allowance. They will then be charged the carbon tax for the fuel that they will use. I cannot believe that we are still doing that and putting public money into it in this day and age. As recently as the last six months, I saw a fine new oil-fired Firebird boiler on a footpath outside a house where the warmer homes scheme has just been completed. The house has been tested and passed everything, yet we are still using a fossil fuel. This is a farce. In a constituency with no public transport, very few facilities to charge electric vehicles, and a ban on the sale of turf, it is time for a wake-up call and to make sure that we do something for what is called a just transition.

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