John Whelan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his answer. I appreciate that the RHI must be structured and work properly, but we are not trying to reinvent the wheel. Such schemes already operate in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. We are playing catch-up. I urge the Minister to put in place interim arrangements such as the triple E register standard, which is already in operation and approved by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, to ensure that people do not need to wait until 2016 before they can start the process of planning and seeking finance to prepare for such installations. As the Minister stated, many commercial and industrial operators would gladly embrace this technology, which is of considerable benefit in terms of job creation. We could embark on exemplar projects that would need to spend a great deal of time in the pipeline, such as district heating systems for clusters of buildings, hospitals, prisons and schools in Portlaoise. Bringing forward the date or improving clarity would be helpful in terms of import substitution, our CO2 targets and job creation.