Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A Cheann Comhairle, colleagues and, more importantly, the people of Dublin Bay North, it is with great humility and deep gratitude that I rise to address this Chamber for the first time. Gabhaim buíochas le gach daoine. Is mór an onóír dom a bheith anseo. I thank my constituents, my family and my kitchen cabinet, Finian McGrath and Damian O'Farrell, for placing their faith in me, for believing in the vision I put forward and for giving me this opportunity to serve them. I am here for delivery. and every decision I make, every question I raise and every battle I fight, will have that in mind.

My thoughts are with the people still without power. I thank ESB dearly for the response to the issues I raised in my constituency in Artane and I thank every single worker who addressed them, but Storm Éowyn has shown us something fundamentally. The energy grid is outdated, overstretched and unfit for purpose. Let us talk facts. I am delighted to see the steps to legalise private wires in the programme for Government. There are gigawatts of renewable projects waiting for a connection. ESB Networks simply cannot handle this backlog with the current infrastructure and every delay is costing the economy billions of euro in lost potential. Private wire connections will provide a key solution to this. For example, a farmer could supply local businesses with solar power or businesses could use combined heat and power, CHP, units to share their energy. These are practical, achievable solutions. If we have energy, we can do this, but right now we are blocking this efficiency. Currently, building regulations mandate separate metering for each apartment block, making shared rooftop incredibly difficult. This is not only an energy issue; this is a housing and cost-of-living issue. We need a modern decentralised grid, similar to Denmark, and we need regulatory reform that embraces this innovation. Every day we delay, we leave families in the dark, communities without power and a cleaner cheaper energy future slipping through our fingers. Unlike the past dealings of our fossil fuel, we should grab our renewable energy potential and benefit the Irish people.

I told Dublin Bay North I would fight for results agus níl sé seo ach an tús.

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