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

There is a spectacular opportunity for bottom-up climate action to empower, and power, communities. People are up for it. At the conference last week, I spoke to colleagues in the sector from across Europe. Our energy communities are based on a retrofitting programme. In most other European countries, they are based on energy generation, which creates the money needed to deliver retrofitting.

There are two elements to consider. Will there be additional financial support for connections? We need the renewable spatial plans. I hear from ESB Networks that these proposed projects are not well located in terms of connection to the gird. Second, as I asked in a priority question on a previous occasion, is there any scope to extend the deadlines and target dates for existing community projects to keep them in RESS?

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