Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I hope the change in the Acting Chair will benefit me in regard to the minute of speaking time allocated to me.

Given the language, I wonder how we can sell this to communities. I believe communities have been ahead of us the whole way. The Minister knows from my experience with Galway that it led the approach to zero waste. We do not get governments to lead the community, which are crying out to lead. What they need is support. The language is awful. I do not know what it means and I cannot explain it. The Minister will have to explain the SRESS to me in plain English.

Second, we still do not know if the four projects will be energised. They were supposed to be energised before the end of 2023. We do not know whether they were energised or if the others will be energised. This is positive. It is very good theoretically but I would love to see it set out in a document. Perhaps the Library and Research Service could produce a digest under the Minister's instructions.

It could explain what is going on here, what percentage of the projects is community led, what the difficulties are, why the grid connection cannot be sorted out, what the guidelines are and when the new scheme will be up and running so I can work with the Minister, my community, look at Galway city and pick out each of the communities that is self contained, such as those in The Claddagh, Shannaunnafeola and Bóthar na Trá. I could pick out any number of such communities.

See this speech in context