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

Report after report highlights the escalating reality of global warming and stresses the urgent need for action to try and mitigate climate change. Shifting our energy sector away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives will be key to reducing our carbon emissions. In addition to major investment in offshore and offshore wind and solar, microgeneration will play an important role in our energy transition.

We have thousands of State-owned schools and community buildings across the country that are perfectly placed to generate clean energy via solar photovoltaic, PV. This is as much about empowerment as anything else. People have paid in to climate action but they have not necessarily been allowed buy in. This is a real opportunity.

This is the lowest of the low hanging fruit. We are bringing forward this legislation. We know there is other legislation there but this is our way of banging the table and saying to the Government to get on with, and we will support it in, the work.

A colleague, Deputy Stanley, brought forward similar legislation in 2019 and, in 2017, brought forward the Microgeneration Support Scheme Bill. This is the low-hanging fruit. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, said yesterday that there is climate rhetoric but not climate action and the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, says the same. There is one word, and I note the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was at the conference yesterday with the EPA, namely, "implementation." That is what this Bill is about.

I hope the Minister takes it in the spirit in which it is intended but we need to see action in relation to it. There are so many positive benefits of this, including opportunities for schools and communities. It is the real opportunity of the climate transition. It is fundamentally about a just transition.

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