Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Dr. Gafarova and the Azerbaijani delegation to the House, particularly on behalf of our former colleague Terry Leyden, who is a neighbour of mine. As Terry could not welcome you here, I am glad to do so. It is great to have you here with us today. I hope you enjoy your visit to Ireland. I hope your engagement with speakers from the other parliaments is a very productive one. I hope it will lead to stronger and better relationships right across the world.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation because I was involved its original conception. Therefore, Deputies can imagine my disappointment and shock when I realised that the Minister with responsibility for energy is, in effect, being written out of it.

As the Minister of State knows, Gas Networks Ireland was originally, through Bord Gáis Éireann, directly responsible, accountable and under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy just as the other energy networks in this country - EirGrid and ESB Networks - were all under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy. I felt very strongly that Gas Networks Ireland, which had been taken out of that remit, should be reinstated within the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, particularly because it has such a vital role to play in the decarbonisation of our energy supply.

I disagree with Deputy Paul Murphy that we should be looking at shutting it down as quickly as possible. I think we should be looking at removing carbon from the gas network as quickly as possible. Tomorrow morning, we could increase the percentage of biomethane in our gas network and we could also introduce hydrogen into our gas network without altering the network system that is there at the moment, but significantly reducing the overall carbon footprint of our gas network in this country very quickly with the stroke of a pen. However, I do not think that will happen if Gas Networks Ireland is under the remit of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is wrong that this is the case and that is the reason I wanted to raise the issue here.

I know the Minister of State will come back and quote an EU directive, but the reality is that today electricity generation and electricity transmission is under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications. He has responsibility for electricity transmission not only in this jurisdiction but also in Northern Ireland and our gas network should be under the remit of the Minister with responsibility for energy and energy policy. I ask the Minister look again at this situation and to engage with the European powers on it.

Gas Networks Ireland has a major role to play in decarbonising particularly in the area of district heating. Disappointingly the development of district heating in this country has ground to a halt because we are waiting for the introduction of legislation to stimulate the market when what we should be doing is directing Gas Networks Ireland to drive this whole network right across this country - not just in the Irish Glass Bottle site in Dublin, not just in Tallaght as a pilot initiative, but in towns across this country which can tomorrow morning be reconfigured to take a district heating system. I think of places like Cavan and Roscommon towns in particular. About ten or 12 towns around the country have public loads available to them and could make district heating available where those public loads are in very close proximity to each other and where much of the legwork has already been done. However, we are doing this in a piecemeal manner.

It is proposed to bring legislation to the House whenever that might be. The drafting of the heads of the heating Bill is ongoing at the moment. When that legislation is in place, we expect the private sector to come in and stimulate this, rather than directing our own semi-State company to drive this forward. It will require a direction from the Minister with responsibility for energy, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, to make this happen. However, disappointingly, the Minister with responsibility for energy is not the Minister that holds this company to account but rather the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. With all due respect, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has enough on his plate at the moment without trying to manage Gas Networks Ireland as well. I ask the Minister to look again at this issue because Gas Networks Ireland has a key role to play in decarbonising our heating system in Ireland, not just through its existing network where, as I said, we could dramatically reduce the amount of carbon in the gas network tomorrow morning with the stroke of a pen if the political will was there to do it, but also in driving forward district heating initiatives in communities, towns and cities right across this country. It should be to the fore in delivering that.

It is disappointing that while district heating was a priority in Project Ireland 2040 and Gas Networks Ireland was seen to be a key driver of that, it was erased from the revised national development plan published by the Government in 2021. While it states that there needs to be a fundamental shift in the way we supply, store and use energy, we do not elaborate on that. Gas Networks Ireland is a semi-State company that could be instrumental in managing this not just with the existing gas network, but more importantly with district heating. It should be to the fore in developing green hydrogen in this country. If tomorrow morning the Government directed Gas Networks Ireland to take on a new remit, to try to drive decarbonisation of the existing gas network, to look at driving initiatives on district heating and to lead the development of green hydrogen in this country, I think investors from outside would look differently at this country and would look at a country that wants to drive that fundamental shift in decarbonisation. However, instead of that, we are kicking the can down the road and we are looking at this in a piecemeal manner, not taking a co-ordinated approach to it.

Related to that is the area of geothermal energy. As the Minister of State will know, the Department had plans to bring forward a geothermal energy development Bill. Two years ago when I asked the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, about the progression of this, he told me that in November 2020 there was an assessment of geothermal energy for district heating in Ireland published along with the report, Geothermal Energy in Ireland: A roadmap for a policy and regulatory framework, but that it required further research, the development of a draft policy statement and final policy for consideration to be presented to the Government. Little has happened since then and that was over two years ago. We are still looking at the possible preparation of legislation in this area. Right across Europe, particularly in northern Europe, geothermal energy is a key driver of heating both in individual homes and in district heating. I believe it is a far more sustainable solution for driving the conversion of heating to electrification in this country than air source heat pumps. However, we still do not have the legislative framework in place and there seems to be no indication that we will have that legislative framework anytime soon. Gas Networks Ireland, working with Geological Survey Ireland, could positively move this area forward.

However, instead of that we are treating Gas Networks Ireland as a traditional company. It is dealing with a dirty energy - less dirty than some other energies, but still a dirty energy. We are trying to brush it under the carpet and keep it as far away from the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications as possible because he does not want to dirty his hands with it. I can understand that, if it is a fossil fuel company. However, there is a unique opportunity to change the remit of Gas Networks Ireland radically. We should use it as an innovative semi-State company, driving a new plethora of alternative energy sources in this country, radically delivering clean green energy in individual homes and communities throughout the country, but the commitment is just not there to do it.

One thing that was disappointingly airbrushed out of the revised national development plan was to develop town-scale pilots for food and agricultural waste for anaerobic digesters within the agricultural catchments to provide an outlet for some of the slurry that we are now talking about, which is causing significant problems for dairy farmers with the nitrates directive. If that had been implemented, we could be taking that slurry, reducing the nitrate ratio per hectare on those farms around the country, and providing a sustainable, clean alternative with biogas for district heating in a number of towns and industries, but nothing has happened with it. That has fallen by the wayside over the last five years because it has not been a priority.

There are opportunities, not just here in the Docklands in Dublin or in Tallaght, which is the only pilot that is up and running. There are ten to 12 provincial towns around this country where district heating could be developed as a viable solution, with the State taking on the bulk of the load of that district heating and ensuring that new housing development in those towns is based on a clean, green district heating system. It is deeply disappointing that we look at these problems the same way as we have always looked at them and we are not prepared to use our semi-State companies to drive a new level of innovation that is so vitally important if we are going to achieve the objectives that we set out in decarbonising our economy.

I want to finish with one other point on decarbonisation. It touches on a comment made earlier by Deputy Paul Murphy. It relates to the better energy warmer homes scheme. We should ensure that when we carry out these retrofits, they are in a manner that leads to decarbonisation of those homes, but the reality is that under the better energy warmer homes scheme, the grants alone are not acting as a sufficient stimulus for people to carry out the retrofits of their home. The reason for that is that many families do not have the capacity to borrow the additional money that is required.

Sadly, when I was in the Department, I strongly made the argument that we should introduce 0% long-term loans to facilitate the deep retrofitting of homes and all the economists argued with me at the time that this is not the way to go. I have just come from a meeting with the Ministers for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and Finance. I made this very point to them in our pre-budget submission, as I made it last year, the year before that and the year before that. Bizarrely, the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland has come out in the last few days and endorsed such an approach to this. I know from talking to families around the country that they are willing to carry out this investment, but they do not have the capacity to borrow. We need to introduce an innovative scheme where the payback would be through a person's utility bill, whether an electricity bill or gas bill. This has been done previously by the electricity companies in this country with the shallow retrofits. Why will we not do it for the deep retrofits? It is not a case of reinventing the wheel.

The other aspect of this scheme is the warmer homes scheme. It carries out a 100% retrofit, free of charge, for people in fuel poverty. They are people in receipt of the fuel allowance who desperately need this work to be carried out. Unfortunately, those people currently have to wait for nearly two years for that work to be carried out. I note that the team that goes out to carry out the assessment of homes has become far more rigorous with regard to what homes it will allow into the scheme. The homes that are losing more heat are the ones that are most likely to be denied access to this scheme. An all or nothing approach is now being taken by the SEAI. If it is a standard, three-bedroom, semi-detached home, the SEAI says it is grand and it will do the retrofit. If there are any unique challenges with the home or it is an older home, the SEAI walks away and says it does not meet its criteria, that it is a heritage home, the SEAI cannot do anything with it, and people will have to wait for another few years before anything happens.

People are left, two years down the road, with astronomical heating bills, in fuel poverty, and the State is saying no thanks, and that it is not going to help people out. Surely to God, the basic thing that should be done with regard to those homes, after people waited for two years to be told, is for the SEAI to at least ensure that shallow measures are carried out. Insulating the attic alone will have a significant impact on the heat retention in every single home in this country. Replacing the lights with low energy-consumption LED lights will have an impact. Sealing the windows and doors to take the draughts out of those houses will have a significant impact.

They are all low-cost measures but they will have a big impact on keeping older people in fuel poverty warm in their homes for significantly less than it is costing them at the moment, but the SEAI says it is all or nothing, and that it does the deep retrofit if it is a standard house. If it is not a standard house, the SEAI says no thanks, and that people will be left high and dry. That is wrong. The warmer homes scheme is about addressing fuel poverty, not about dealing with low-hanging retrofitting fruit for the SEAI, so it can clap itself on the back and say to the Minister that it has reduced the waiting list because it is excluding the most vulnerable families, individuals and homes from the scheme. It is wrong and I ask the Minister to revisit it.

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