Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Taoiseach back to the hot seat and wish him the best of luck.

On solar energy, the Climate Action Plan 2023 has a new ambition of 8 GW of power from solar photovoltaic, PV, sources, which is up from 5.5 GW. A large portion of that is going to come from the farming community and farm buildings. Farmers are up for this. They want it and are very interested in it, as we can see.

We have done a great amount. The planning exemptions and the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, grant has been introduced up to 60%, which is down to the hard work of the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, who is in front of me in the Chamber. As farmers can also avail of that clean energy tariff when they avail of the TAMS grant, we are doing a great deal for farmers. They are still meeting obstacles out there from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, and the ESB in what they can avail of. The maximum kilowatt-hours are 17 kWh and 50 kWh respectively-----

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