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

Yes. I will tell the Senator the reason. It goes back to efficiency. We will get the workforce because the system before this was always stop-start, with building contractors working for six months and then stopped for six months, having to wait to find out whether there was more money. It is no wonder the industry did not scale up. Now that they know that they have €9 billion in funding guaranteed for the next ten years, they will scale up. For young people coming out of college or school this summer or doing their leaving certificate who want a career for 30 years, one that is helping to solve the key problems of our society and is deeply rewarding and fulfilling because it will improve the health of their homes, there will be nothing better. Those numbers will rise as well as being able to provide homes.

I will finish on the point of efficiency in everything. The switch to an electrified system backed up by hydrogen, to electric vehicles and to really clever use of our land will work and will be delivered because it is actually a better system. We will not crack the whip and turn people on political righteousness by saying they have done the right thing or wrong thing. However, the country can and will switch away from a burning system where we burn imported fuels to one where we use our own in very efficient digital systems. That is the new industrial revolution that is taking place across the world. We can and will be good at it. It will take us a while to ramp it up but it is happening.

The retrofitting is happening. It has massive applications beyond compare. People are looking to do it because they realise it actually makes sense. Just as we switched from open fires to central heating in three decades, we will switch in three decades from burning anything to having really well-insulated electrically powered homes. It will be the same with cars. There will not be internal combustion engine vehicles in three decades time because the alternative is better. It is just more efficient. That is why I am confident we will make this leap. It is a leap; it is beyond compare. The climate action plan sets out how we do it. It will be revised in November and again the following year.