Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)

These small local issues will be the things that help. At the moment, it is not only that there is a housing crisis. Where somebody is waiting for a connection to build houses, if someone else can easily build a solar farm and have a direct line link to those houses, it will speed up everything. Germany, the UK and Denmark are doing it. I understand the Government is bringing forward a policy and I welcome the fact the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, announced that, but it needs to be fast-tracked. When I knock on doors in my constituency, I find people are struggling with energy bills. Private wires will reduce bills because of the demand on the grid being used by big energy. If they can take that off, this will reduce the demand and the cost per unit.

We constantly discuss in the climate and energy committee the curtailment we will face with the ORE being built across Ireland at the moment. It is great to see. There was a €90 million investment in Cork Port. It was great but many experts say we need to put more than €90 million in for when these large vessels come in to develop offshore renewable energy projects. To make it as effective as possible, more needs to be going in. I asked two weeks ago for the maritime law to be changed so the Department could put this on. It would be very good if this could be looked at and fast-tracked. If we could build infrastructure at our ports in the west using offshore renewable energy off the coast of my constituency, we could tackle the curtailment, take in the surplus energy, build electrolysis centres with private wires and have long-duration energy. The end goal is being as efficient as possible. No other country has the potential we have on our coasts to build our grid. With this great Bill, which I welcome, it needs to be done correctly. We need experts there. It cannot be brought down by inertia and indecision.

Private wires can play a major role in reducing emissions, cutting connection delays and supporting economic activity. Eco-villages across the country help us decarbonise the data sector while allowing it to grow responsibly. I am well aware 53,000 jobs are directly or indirectly linked to the data centre industry in this country. I will not say the industry needs to be removed. I understand the FDI that comes from it but we need to mitigate the damage it is causing. That is something we can do right now.

Solar farms across the country are waiting 18 to 24 months, on record, for a connection. It is ridiculous that they are built, sitting there and not supplying homes.

I urge the Minister of State and his Department to look into fast-tracking private wires as a simple win for the Government and for our climate, our housing and our entire grid system.

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