John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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546. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans since taking office to increase ambition in tackling climate change and ensuring Ireland becomes a leader on climate action; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48321/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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l have secured Government approval to prepare an all of government plan which will set out the actions which must be taken in every government department and body to make Ireland a leader in responding to climate change. I will work with colleagues across Government to develop new initiatives across electricity, transport, heat, agriculture and other relevant sectors. The new plan will have a strong focus on implementation, including actions with clear timelines and steps needed to achieve each action, assigning clear lines of responsibility for delivery. The new plan will also be informed by successful approaches in other countries, where such approaches could be adapted for implementation in Ireland. This Plan will build on the previous actions taken by government, including in the National Mitigation Plan and the National Development Plan.

Ireland's National Mitigation Plan, published in 2017, sets out the sectoral policy measures required in order to manage Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions at a level appropriate for making progress towards our long-term national transition objective, as well as taking into account our EU and international obligations. Although this first Plan does not provide a complete roadmap to achieve our national transition objective to 2050, it begins the process of development of medium- to long-term options to ensure that we are well positioned to take the necessary actions in the next and future decades.

Building on the National Mitigation Plan, the publication in February of the National Development Plan reaffirms the Government’s commitment to transitioning Ireland to a low carbon, climate resilient economy and society. Reflecting the strong commitment of Government on this issue, almost €22 billion will be directed, between Exchequer and non-Exchequer resources, to addressing the transition to a low-carbon and climate resilient society. This means that about  €1 in €5 spent under the National Development Plan will be on climate action and this capital investment will enable us to deliver a significant reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions over the period to 2030.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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547. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he is satisfied that Ireland is ambitious enough on climate action and the use of renewable energy to continue to attract investment in the technology sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48322/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive sets Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020.  Ireland is committed to achieving this target through meeting 40% of electricity demand, 12% of heat and 10% of transport from renewable sources of energy. Latest data from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) indicate that 30.1% of our electricity came from renewable sources in 2017.  Overall, SEAI analysis shows that 10.6% of Ireland’s energy requirements in 2017 were met from renewable sources, with an expectation that Ireland will achieve over 80% of its 16% renewable energy target by 2020. The SEAI has also estimated that the contribution of renewables avoided €276 million of fossil fuel imports in 2017.

The Government has adopted a range of policy measures and schemes to incentivise the use of renewable energy including the Renewable Energy Feed-In-Tariff (REFIT) schemes.  In addition, my Department is developing the new Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS), which will be designed to assist Ireland in meeting its renewable energy contributions out to 2030; and the Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH), the purpose of which is to reduce the use of fossil fuels within the heating sector.

In April 2018, a policy statement on Biofuel Obligation Scheme was published. This policy statement set out an increase in the obligation to 10% from 1 January 2019; this will increase further to 11% from 1 January 2020.

In June of this year the EU agreed an EU-wide binding renewable energy target of 32% out to 2030 and Ireland’s contribution will be informed by the development of Ireland’s first integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), a draft of which will be submitted to the Commission in December. The NECP will include trajectories for renewable energy (including renewable electricity ambitions), energy efficiency, and national emissions, as well as the measures required to achieve these trajectories.

Data centres are becoming a key dimension of electricity demand growth in Ireland and earlier this year Government set  out a statement of on  the role data centres play in Ireland’s ambition to be a digital economy hot-spot in Europe. Ireland currently hosts several global players in the ICT sector and boasts a strong cadre of technology-rich Irish owned enterprises. Acknowledging that data centres, as large consumers of electricity, also pose particular challenges to the future planning and operation of a sustainable power system, the Government Statement recognised these challenges and a  plan-led approach will develop a range of measures to promote regional options for data centre investment, minimising the need for additional grid infrastructure. The detailed statement is available at .