Results 18,401-18,420 of 31,374 for speaker:Eamon Ryan

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I agree with Deputy Whitmore that Inland Fisheries Ireland is a hugely important agency. The quality of our fisheries is as good a marker and test as any of what we are achieving on water quality and biodiversity protection in a variety of different ways, the acidity of our water reflecting land use and forestry and so on. I suggest, with the arrival of a draft new corporate plan for...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The landfill remediation grant programme was established in 2006 in recognition of the need to provide financial support to local authorities in addressing legacy landfill sites across the State. The programme aims to ensure the regularisation of historic and other identified landfill sites in order to militate against any potential harm posed by such sites to the environment and human...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Where there are real difficulties, such as that one in Galway and the one in Kildare, that need remediation, the approach of the Department and this fund is to allow the State to be able to support and intervene. I understand it is primarily a matter for local authorities' management. Like the Deputy, I am aware of a number of cases. In my constituency, historically, we had a problem on...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I do not have any information on that. I will ask the Department to revert to the Deputy if it is on the programme in any way.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Since 2003, the Department has been engaged in this support. It has provided €115 million over that period of 17 years. It provided €5.7 million last year. It supports the provision of local authority waste enforcement staff under the local authority enforcement measures grant scheme. This grant scheme facilitates local authorities in enforcing national waste legislation...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: On subhead E3 and the EPA, it is total funding of €43 million for the EPA. It was the capital allocation the Deputy was referring to of €11.7 million. That covers a variety of different projects with which the EPA is engaged. On the issue of air quality, I ask the Deputy to bear with me a second.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The Department is currently finalising Ireland's national clean air strategy. It is a policy framework which will recognise the positive impact of existing Government plans but will have to identify and promote additional integrated measures to reduce air pollution and promote cleaner air. It will involve the development of a regional approach to air quality and noise enforcement, and a...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The fund of €10 million was to support the seven projects which were approved for funding up to €77 million. The shortfall arises because some of them have been delayed in planning or have taken longer than might have been expected. For example, the district heating scheme in Dublin has not advanced as quickly as we might have liked and neither has the use of district heating...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: There are plans to scale it up in a variety of ways. I refer, for example, to the action being taken in the midlands to deliver the just transition fund. The €6 million fund is divided into two phases. This year there was a series of projects. Typically, smaller projects were agreed and supported for funding in September. We expect to see a second round of larger projects agreed...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I agree with the Deputy. We need to be more ambitious. I had a meeting last week with the Fingal county manager, the mayor and the various directors of services. One of the issues that came up was their working with the three other Dublin local authorities to submit a joint bid to the Department under the scheme that exits for support for municipal e-charging systems and to do that on a...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage may have a role but I think the key agency in this is the ESB because it delivers the electricity grid network. As the distribution company, it will have to innovate and invest in the network. That is a matter for my Department and the energy regulator. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities has to agree to whatever investment...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: As I mentioned, two targets were set in the early part of the last decade. One was to meet our renewables targets and the second was to meet our climate emissions reduction targets. In the case of the latter, we are between 12 million and 13 million tonnes short of meeting our target. Achieving compliance only became an issue in recent years following the downturn and recession. By 2011,...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (22 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: That funding was allocated to the climate action fund in advance of the legislation amending the National Oil Reserves Agency, NORA, levy being passed. It was a historical fund which we had used for energy efficiency measures. These appropriations-in-aid are often technical transfers from the historical fund for climate efficiency to the climate action fund. That covered the projects...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract signed last November to roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the Intervention Area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the over 544,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Telecommunications Infrastructure (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Providing telecommunication services, including mobile phone and broadband services, is a matter for the relevant service providers operating in a fully liberalised market regulated by the Commission for Communication Regulation (ComReg), as independent Regulator. I do not have statutory authority to require commercial companies to rollout services and make specific investments in particular...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Better Energy Homes Scheme (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The Better Energy Warmer Homes Scheme is funded by my Department and administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). The scheme delivers a range of energy efficiency measures free of charge to low income households vulnerable to energy poverty. The aim of the scheme is to deliver efficiency measures in a way which represents the best possible use of Exchequer funding. ...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Recycling Data (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The EPA calculates  recycling rates based on a combination of waste treatment data obtained directly from waste treatment facilities, waste generation data from waste collectors (obtained via the National Waste Collection Permit Office) and export data (obtained from the National Trans-frontier Shipping Office). To obtain more accurate information on recycling rates and to satisfy new EU...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Electric Vehicles (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Government is fully committed to supporting a significant expansion and modernisation of our electric vehicle charging network over the coming years. Currently, there are 16 standard chargers (32 charge points) and four fast chargers on the ESB network in Co Wexford. Seven of the standard chargers (14 charge points) have been replaced in the last year through...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Climate Change Policy (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 and provide for a significantly strengthened statutory framework for more effective governance of the State’s climate objectives, as well as underpinning targeted strategies, plans and actions to realise our national, EU and international climate goals and obligations. ...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Climate Change Policy (21 Oct 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The Programme for Government commits to an average 7% per annum reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions from 2021 to 2030 (that equates to a 51% reduction over the decade); and to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. The Climate Action (Amendment) Bill provides for a strengthened statutory governance framework to deliver this commitment. This includes defining a process for...