Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is right to draw our attention to the potential of district heating. It is going to play a vital role in meeting our climate targets, protecting our people from high fossil fuel prices and building better homes for them. As the Deputy knows, it is not without its complications. We need to learn from other countries and from the small number of projects that have been developed here. However, it is going to play a key role. That is why we have set up the working group, which has met more than a dozen times and which will produce a report shortly.

It would be good for Deputy McAuliffe to talk to Codema, which is Dublin's energy efficiency agency. It has done a really good map of the entire city that shows potential district heating source locations. It is less likely with the type of power generation we are talking about here because in a more flexible system, it might be turned on and off and would not provide constant heat. Anywhere there is a waste heat source, whether it is from industry or from the Poolbeg incinerator, may be suitable. Such sources include data centres, which are quite extensive in the Deputy's constituency. In one instance in south Dublin, we have taken the waste heat from a data centre to heat a local hospital. That might be an avenue to pursue.

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