Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)

As I have said in the House before, I reject both the assertions from the Department of public expenditure and the comments made earlier this year on housing and data centres. They are not correct. Government policy is clear on this. We have a growing population and growing housing stock, thankfully. Price review 6, when published before the end of this year, will show how we will meet that future energy demand. We need to invest in our grid, and there will be a cost associated with that. I mentioned what we were doing last night in relation to providing the equity investment for ESB and a further equity investment for EirGrid. That reduces the requirement for borrowing somewhat and allows them to leverage off that equity to borrow. Into the future, I will look at maybe longer term borrowing and repayment to reduce the burden on the regulatory framework. That is something we have to balance, but we do need this grid investment. I put it to the Deputy again that projects like the North-South interconnector are absolutely required. This is consented to both sides of the Border and it is not developed. It needs to happen. The connector is one project that will bring down energy bills for businesses and households straight away.

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