Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy McCormack. I offer my sincere sympathy to him and his family on their loss.

The Deputy is so right to highlight the importance of the electricity grid, both from an energy security and from a housing point of view. We quite rightly talk in this House about the emergency that is housing - there is no doubt about that - but the key enabler to moving forward on that emergency is water, wastewater and energy supply. That is why the Government is very minded to invest significantly more funding through Uisce Éireann and into the grid through EirGrid and others. We will be looking at this in the context of the Apple escrow account and that once-off opportunity to make that investment. We will consider this in due course in the months ahead. We are determined to get that right and make sure there is bang for buck in terms of that investment leading to extra houses. I will keep the Deputy updated as that progresses.

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