Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the climate action plan. As a climate action spokesperson and member of the Joint Committee on Climate Action, I am proud of the role that I and my colleagues of all parties and none have played in assisting the Minister on the legislative side of these plans and building upon that which was published and enacted in 2019.

In the short time available, I will cover four key themes. The first is building and the need to support homeowners in the State's plan to retrofit up to 500,000 properties by 2030 to building energy ratings, BER, of A and B. The Minister of State will appreciate how important the State-backed finance arrangements are to that particular programme. These have yet to be announced. This finance is key to ensuring that homeowners can make the change and retrofit their homes to include heat pumps rather than gas or oil boilers and improve the quality of their homes. A property with a BER of A or B gets better ventilation which is beneficial to human health. A key point with regard to Rebuilding Ireland and Housing for All is that we are not building enough properties with timber. Our afforestation rates are clearly a constraint on that particular goal. That needs to be addressed and incorporated in our building regulations in a firmer way. If an incentive programme needs to be provided to achieve that, we should provide one.

In regard to energy, the acceleration of delivery of offshore and onshore wind farms and solar power is important to ensuring we can reduce the carbon footprint of our energy sector. A new planning and development Bill to be introduced shortly will make a substantial contribution to that. MARA also has a critical involvement in the delivery of offshore wind power. The hydrogen strategy is to be published, and should be published promptly. Those considerations need to be kept in mind when it comes to the all-important implementation, which is key to the success of this plan.

Transport is the third area. Massive reductions are required in carbon emissions. Improvements to rural bus services are needed, as is the accelerated delivery of BusConnects, not to mention the importance of electrifying the vehicular fleet throughout the State.

Finally, I mention the importance of ensuring that businesses play their part in this and are incentivised to reduce their carbon footprint in the business they conduct daily.

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