Results 1,141-1,160 of 3,983 for speaker:Jennifer Whitmore

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Okay.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Is Ms Trant able to give me the figure?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Okay, and at this stage the commission does not know if that is an isolated issue.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I am not sure whether the commission can address this, but Meta would need to keep its accounts on track. I imagine the company would have noticed its bill was particularly low. I imagine it would have gone to the ESB to say there is an issue here, because otherwise it has a liability on its accounting system. Is that something the commission will also be looking into, that is, the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Does Mr. Gannon have concerns about the ESB and the fact there are major technical issues following it around? It does not seem to be on top of the charging mechanisms it has in place.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Some 12 years later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I know the issue of higher prices has been raised quite often in the meeting today. On a number of occasions, the witnesses specified the rationale behind the reason those prices were increasing. They spoke about the fact that Ireland is an isolated country and how we have a high gas dependency, low interconnection and a dispersed population. That was repeated a couple of times. The one...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: The CRU has not done an analysis on exactly what proportion of electricity prices are being derived from which energy generation or demand issues. The CRU has not done that modelling itself.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I am asking about supply and demand. In every open market, there is supply and demand. The more demand, the higher the price. That is just a fundamental economic principle.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I will move on because I am conscious that others wish to come in. The CRU representatives will look into it and examine whether that is a potential. There was a paper out this week by a couple of the economists from the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, about data centres and how the biggest issue is not just the location of the data centres but their magnitude and their...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Would Ms MacEvilly welcome a revisit of the data centre policy and guidelines from the Government to specify that it needs to be economically and carbon sustainable? Would that make the CRU’s job easier? The CRU is looking at it just from the connections perspective but there is this broader thing. At the moment, Government policy is very much that we welcome data centres. Would Ms...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I find it interesting that when had Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, representatives in here at one stage about district heating and the potential of data centres to input into that, they did not know how many data centres there were or the capacity or energy demand of the data centres. They could not find any of that information. They actually pulled from a lobby...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I do not believe this information is collected centrally. The Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Environment, Climate and Communications do not have it and I do not believe any other entity knows exactly how many data centres there are, where they are, what their energy usage is and what the demand is. I had assumed the CRU would have that information because data...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Water consumption is also an issue. There needs to be a centralised entity.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Somebody should have it, and I think that should be the CRU.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Exactly. It is how can we regulate unless we know. It probably should be the CRU because it covers energy, electricity, gas and water and has that central role. Certainly, someone needs to have oversight because there are lots of pieces of the jigsaw but no one is making the picture.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: We should make that decision while we are here.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: Is that something that would be worthwhile to do? We are going from a point where data centres are using 15% to potentially, in a number of years, where they would using 30%. Surely, as part of the monitoring and the forecast monitoring, we should have some idea of the impact that will have on prices for consumers.

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth: General Scheme of the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I thank the witnesses for their presentations. They have put a huge amount of work into them, which will be very useful as we go through this process. My first question relates to proposals for taking greater account of the voice of the child. It is really welcome that this provision is to be strengthened. What protections and supports will need to be put in place in this regard? We...

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth: General Scheme of the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (9 May 2023)

Jennifer Whitmore: I am just substituting for today's meeting. It seems that this has been a major conversation anyway.