Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)

In this Chamber on Tuesday night, I asked the Minister for agriculture a question and he confirmed that farmers cannot put excess solar energy back onto the grid. These are the farmers who access the solar capital investment scheme. The Tánaiste or I can put panels on our roofs and we can feed excess energy back into the grid. Farmers cannot do that. It is fundamentally unfair. There are 130,000-plus farms in the country. Many of those buildings can take solar panels. Why can we not encourage farmers to do that and put energy back onto the national grid? I understand from the Minister that it is a question of EU state aid, which sound ludicrous to me. I do not even see the angle for state aid. I ask the Tánaiste to use his good offices in trade and foreign affairs to progress that at European level.

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