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

I welcome the fact the Minister has been engaging with me on private wires legislation and I know he has a huge job ahead of him. I wish him the best of luck in his phost nua.

The Government is currently paying for research, funded by Research Ireland and conducted by Dr. James Carton, my previous professor in sustainability engineering at DCU and his colleagues at UCD. What they are telling us is that we now need to invest hundreds of millions, if not billions, to ensure this is done. Will the Minister's office release a statement outlining what is going to be done? This is not just a chance to decarbonise our energy system. It is also a chance to save ourselves billions that could be invested in schools, hospitals, Gaelscoileanna, disability services and so on. It is going to save the Exchequer millions. I understand that it is very hard for the Department to put millions into ports because there is an issue there. Can that be removed so that the Government can pump money into the ports? We do not have the infrastructure to take in the equipment. If we are serious about changing the LNG plant to a green hydrogen plant, we need to make the investment such that there will not be a bottleneck for this energy.

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