Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I ask him the Minister of State to come back to me in writing on where that is. Obviously it is very positive. We all want to have schemes that are fit for purpose. We want to see we can actually deliver district heating systems at scale. I return to the Achilles' heel that exists with communal heating systems. I spoke to the Minister before about Carlinn Hall and I spoke to the previous Minister many times. He opened this particular housing estate. It has 200 homes and unfortunately the system that was biomass-fed is now gas-fed. We need to find an alternative. I have spoken to some companies and the SEAI about it. There may be something in train, in which case it is a proposal we will be bringing to the Government. There has been a feasibility study in the area on geothermal energy, a solution that would probably require a number of parts. I hope to get a promise from the Government on delivering for the people concerned. This obviously became a huge issue when gas prices went through the roof, but it is also an environmental disaster. There is a legal framework in an awful lot of other countries to deal with this issue, but it is an anomaly we still have here.

See this speech in context