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

We are switching away from that. We are switching to renewables which will give us a stable, reliable lower cost option keeping money in the country rather than going to Russia, Iran or other countries where we import the gas from at the moment. The second main reason it is expensive is because we have a very distributed housing system and we have to get a power line to every single home. I did not hear Mark Foley at the Oireachtas committee, but I will go back and listen to him. Getting new power plants has been a difficulty and that is why we as a House intervened. We voted through legislation to put in emergency generation. I am glad to say the first set of that last year was fired up in the North Wall and is providing backup to run our system. The second sets in Shannonbridge and Tarbert will be opened up in the coming months. We had to intervene, but I believe the market is still the best way for us to deliver power generation assets. We will continue to use the competitive market system that promotes investment in the renewable, cleaner alternative.

Large companies have made significant profits through the high-price period because of the war in Ukraine. That is why we introduced very significant supernormal taxes on them, windfall taxes. ESB, for example, has been particularly profitable. It is not all from the Irish market. It is very significantly profitable from the UK as well which allows us to maintain investment here as well as there in a way that serves the Irish people. We have to be careful when we look at some of the headline figures as to where the profit is really coming from where it is going.

The Deputy is absolutely right that the solar panels programme for schools is part of our transformation. Last year we had 30 times more solar power by the end of the year than we had at the start. In one year, we put up 1 GW of solar which is spectacular growth in solar power. It is happening in so many different areas in so many ways. Schools is one of them. It is an important one as a signal, as a symbol and as a learning, as well as helping to reduce school costs. It is a 100% grant. We have started with the first nine counties, but every single country will be included and every school is eligible. For the first nine counties when we put out applications in the autumn, 1,600 schools were eligible,1,400 replied and 1,200 went into the tendering process. They are starting to be built out. Every school in the country will be able to have it.

The Deputy asked about sports clubs. Some 70 sports clubs have already availed of the non-domestic support scheme for solar - up to €160,000 and they are already getting it built. This summer 200 schools will install EV charging points on a separate Department of Transport scheme because sports clubs form a huge part of our community. So "Yes" is the answer to the Deputy's question. Solar on both, along with EV charging, is going in as part of this change to our own domestic renewable power supply.

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