Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There is no intention to do that. I think 2025 was the closure date target under the emissions directive. Nobody is looking to extend the date. It is purely to get us through to a phase whereby we get a backup variable gas plant to give us cover.

I could not agree more with Senator Murphy on helping families in a tight corner. He referred to the increases to the living alone allowance, the qualified child payment and the fuel allowance. What is significant in the last two budgets is that in each instance we have been able to show, through independent analysis from the ESRI, that despite this environment of higher and increasing fuel prices, the social welfare increases protected those in the bottom four deciles from the increased prices they are experiencing. Every family has different circumstances. However, a large number of those on the lowest income got a net cash benefit. Using the carbon tax revenue to increase social welfare provisions is central strategy. The attractive thing about it is that it is stitched into law that the money will go back. Some 30% of it will go to social welfare increases, 55% will go to improvements in retrofitting and 15% will go to small farmers. That will all help families in a tight corner.

Senator Kyne is right that natural gas still has a role. The backup gas fleet we will need to complement renewable power will be key to having secure supplies in the next two decades. As I said, it will not operate most of the time. If we develop 5 GW of offshore wind, which tends to be more stable, 2.5 GW of solar and further interconnection with France and the UK, we will have more choices. However, we will need backup for that period, as well as for calm periods in the middle of winter. This summer, we saw slow periods of very little wind. We will need that gas, particularly for those periods.

The Senator mentioned the Sceirde Rocks offshore wind farm, one of seven projects we are dealing with because they have legacy consent, foreshore licensing consent and so on. They are in the first phase of offshore rounds. We expect them next year in an auction process. We do not know who will get through that process because it will depend on the auction. They will then have to get through planning and secure all the other consents. That will be first phase. The second phase will follow two or three years later with the next auction and there will then be a third phase.

Senator Boylan mentioned the Maritime Area Planning Bill, which will be critical in that process, particularly in the second phase and beyond the consenting process. The Senator is right that we have to provide biodiversity protection. We are in a biodiversity crisis and not just a climate crisis. We have to protect our marine environment in a co-ordinated way. It is critical that we get the maritime planning legislation through the Oireachtas as soon as we can. Even then, it will take us time to set up the maritime area regulatory authority, MARA, to issue the second phase consents. The first phase will be issued directly by my Department, pending the introduction of MARA.

Senator Dolan spoke about Shannonbridge and Lanesborough. Senator Dooley asked a question which I did not address. I apologise for running slightly over, but I would like to answer this out of respect to Senator Dooley. He asked if people were surprised that nobody had picked up on this shortfall. Yes, everyone was surprised. In the capacity statement two years ago, and in regulator statements, nobody had said this. I recall that ten years ago, EirGrid rightly said at the time that we need a load of backup open cycle gas plants. We have not delivered these since. It was only in the last year that the scale or nature of the problem arose. The auction process did not deliver. We had expected it to deliver for a whole variety of reasons. There was an underlying miscalculation whereby people did not see the need for that 2 GW of backup power. One of the consequences of this is that Shannonbridge, Lanesborough and other power locations with a grid connection, which often also have a platform, infrastructure and industrial expertise and capability, have potential. That is particularly the case in the midlands where there are real skills in areas such as voltage frequencies, stability and providing inertia and battery storage. Part of this energy revolution involves balancing variable supply and variable demand. Doing that and maintaining the frequency and stability of the grid are key. There are companies in the midlands that have real skills in how to provide this. Flywheel energy storage and other synchronistic converter technologies address the technical issue around inertia, voltage and frequency stability. The sites I described may have real potential in that regard.

A number of Senators suggested we need to further enhance or invest in the SEAI warmer homes scheme. It is not surprising that there is a long lead time for the scheme given that it is so attractive. However, we are looking at particular options for potential further funding for it. I hope to come back to the Seanad in the near future if we can get that to full fruition.

I will pick up on one point Senator Pauline O'Reilly said about getting this right. She is correct in what she said about data centres. A balance is needed between creating a stable, prosperous economy for our people and a sustainable low-carbon future. I will take the example of the data centres and the complex different things we could do. If we get this right, it will turn a negative into a positive. We will show we are good at this and become a place in which people will want to invest. We will be able to create stable employment for our people, which we need, because we will be getting it right. We will be decarbonising while still providing essential services.

The climate action plan will, I hope, be published on Friday. It will be an iteration of and will resemble in many ways the original plan from 2019 of the then Minister, Deputy Bruton. That plan was founded on the joint Oireachtas committee recommendations, which were, in turn, founded on the Citizens’ Assembly recommendations. We followed a process here. We took a climate approach based on all-party consensus and centred on the Oireachtas committee. The then Minister's plan came out of that and the forthcoming plan will be an evolution from that plan. It will be similar in many ways but more ambitious. There have been more learnings and developments since that can give us confidence that this is where we should go.

The climate action plan must, by law, change next year if we are not meeting our targets. This is the strength of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 we now have. It will continue to evolve and iterate in getting it right in this complex balancing of energy security, environmental considerations and economic interests. The trilemma in energy policy is always how one gets it right. In that trilemma, the environment comes first in getting it right. Whereas one can change security and economic figures, one cannot change the physics of what we have to stop going into the atmosphere. That is a limit that is immutable in the sense that we have to listen to the science. That is the centre of getting it right. As regards the other variables then, we work around the environmental imperative and get it right in that way.