Results 921-940 of 2,990 for speaker:Ossian Smyth

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: Well, there is an intermediate 2025 target and then a 2030 target. However, I do not think we are due to pay anything until 2030. Some kind of accounting will be done at the end of 2025. I will come back to the Deputy with some estimates but, as I stated, it all depends on the future pricing of carbon and whether we meet our targets. I shall move on to subhead A7. The question is about...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Deputy. I will start with the first question on output indicators. I take his point that the output indicators are few and may not be so relevant to what we would expect to see as a list of key performance indicators for a budget. There is an attempt to keep them consistent from one year to the next so we can chart them from year to year and see how progress is going. If the...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: The EPA is the statutory body responsible for keeping track of our national greenhouse gas, GHG, inventory. I know that estimates appear much earlier than their definitive figures, and those estimates appear from different Government agencies. It does take some time to see a final, definitive statement from the EPA as to how large our emissions were. The figures tend to be published...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I think the REV is published in December. It should have the latest data in it. If there are data that have been agreed or signed off, they should be in it. I take the Deputy's point. The Deputy also asked about the climate action plan and who is in charge of keeping track of its deliverables and do on. I understand that the Department of the Taoiseach has a co-ordinating role in...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: If we look at the budgets, there is a five-year budget until 2025 and another one until 2030. During that time any Minister can of course be called before a committee. There is a legal requirement on the Government to meet those emissions ceilings. There are sectoral emissions ceilings for which a corresponding Minister can be found in each case. In any event, where a target is not being...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: That has not been decided yet, and there is a conversation going on with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to determine how those costs would be allocated. The Deputy asked about the land use review as well.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: When the land use review was set up there were two phases to it. The idea is that the review would cover farmland, forests and peatlands, find optimal use options and inform Government decisions. The review will balance environmental, social and economic considerations and involve a process of evaluation of the ecological characteristics of the land. It will include considerations of...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the committee for the opportunity to present the 2023 Estimates for programmes A, B and C at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The Estimates for programme D, the connectivity and communications programme, were considered by the Select Committee on Transport and Communications on 8 February 2023. The total provision for the Department this year is...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I would certainly want to have some input into that. The Deputy also asked about the timeliness of the EPA's data publication on greenhouse gas emissions.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I feel that the civil servants are looking at me now. I will send you a note, Chair, to clarify how the indicators are agreed, the process whereby they are agreed, how long it takes before an indicator is agreed and then data are got out of it. It would be an idea to think of which indicators we should be following. That should be something between maybe the committee and the Department to...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: To be fair, I was asked about that earlier and I have committed to come back with more detail as to what the training consists of or what the reason is for the variation in numbers between years.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: Would you like some information on what those air quality monitoring visits consist of?

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: We are starting with subhead B4. The Deputy asked about the big increase from €94 million to €355 million. It states in the Deputy's briefing note that the figure of €94.952 million excluded a capital carryover of €57 million during that year, which understates it somewhat. We did have a capital carryover that went into that. The plan in 2023 is to retrofit...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: Yes, next month. That was accounted for last year. The way the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform requested that this be done was that all of the money be drawn down before the end of the calendar year, then the money was transferred to ESB Networks to make sure it had the entire €1.6 billion for distribution to customers by the end of the...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I will start with the first question, which is about the climate impact or the carbon impact of these schemes for retrofit. The Deputy will appreciate that there is not a simple relationship between the amount spent and the volume of emissions saved. Different interventions have different results. This is why we are targeting for example, attic insulation and wall insulation with an 80%...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: There are two points to be made on that, First, there should be a clear benefit to switching, and the packages should be better value than with the dumb meter version. Second, the data should be available in a simple way to everybody. If these benefits are not spelled out, people will not change readily. I take the Deputy's point on that. A total of 33,740 customers registered their...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: Does the Deputy envisage ESB Networks or the retailer analysing the usage?

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I am told the CRU is leading on GDPR discussions both nationally and at EU level. The current position is that it must be customer-led.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I will make sure somebody speaks to the Data Protection Commissioner. We can discuss this again but I take the Deputy's point. It should be possible to be told easily the best plan to be on. It may require a degree of consent unless it is possible to anonymise the data or present them in an aggregate way that does not compromise people's privacy.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Deputy. One of those issues may come under programme C. Certainly, landfill sites for remediation-----