Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister knows as well as I do that when these figures came out, there were wide eyes and people were whispering, such was the shock about them. We want to transition to renewables and they are cheaper the gas alternative but if the suggestion is we are going to move from, relatively speaking, super-high gas and electricity prices in Ireland to, relatively speaking, super-high renewables prices, we will have a major problem.

In the first instance the Minister must look at being aggressive at every pinch point and every factor contributing to those high costs. We support the call from the industry that a cross-government group could formulate policy recommendations. There are questions around grid costs and EirGrid's plan. There are also questions around planning and commercial rates. There are opportunities to reduce costs and the Government must heed that call, or else we will not be competitive on the international export markets that we want to create for hydrogen etc.

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