Darragh O'Brien: Defends Renewables, Data Centres and Retrofitting

Look, thanks to the Labour Party for tabling the motion and I'll deal with elements of it in my way of my response. Just look, I've been struck by many of the responses here, many constructive, well-meaning, others not. I just would say to Deputy Danny Healy-Ray specifically on this, like climate change is real, it's happening now, the science is indisputable, but climate action is critically important to counter that, but not only just to counter climate change, but it affords us great opportunities here, great opportunities on climate action in relation to new technologies, in relation to the electrification of our country, which will make us more competitive, reduce our dependence on fossil, so even if one was to argue, which I never would, that fossil does not impact on climate, which it does, Ireland as a country is still too dependent on imported fossil fuel. State the very obvious, we're an island nation, we've low interconnection rates, we import 80% of our gas from our nearest neighbour, we produce 20% of it. So where do we need to go to, is we need to accelerate renewables and deployments of renewables, and I'll touch on that too in my remarks. We've tabled a counter motion, and I don't just do that light, because there are elements within the Labour motion that I just profoundly disagree with, and it's interesting as well, as things like the airport cap were thrown into this, and I do remember a time as someone who represents an airport constituency, when Labour were supporters of airport workers, and it's very clear now, even in advance of the debate on the Dublin airport cap, passenger cap bill, that it is not a side that Labour are actually taking anymore, and I think that's regrettable. If I take the airport, and I'll move on to data and ICT in a moment, 130,000 direct and indirect jobs derive very good incomes from Dublin airport alone. We're growing Shannon, we're growing Cork, we're growing Ireland West as well. So it's not just one instead of the other. I don't think anyone can actually argue that an 18-year-old planning condition is appropriate and serves Ireland well right now, and I'd agree with much of what Deputy Michael Healy-Ray has said in that regard. I just ask people to reflect on it. It doesn't set aside environmental considerations either. That's incorrect in the motion, purely incorrect. Look at the legislation, and Commissioner Pinaula will be the ones who will assess the environmental assessments, not me as Minister, but this needs to happen. If we're serious about growth in jobs and protecting our connectivity and protecting our competitiveness, this needs to happen, and I would warn against a move towards populism in that regard. Could I just say, look, on energy pricing, I was at the Energy Ireland conference earlier today, so my colleague Catherine Ardaff took the first half of the debate, but I listened to the debate on the way back as well. Many have thrown out this figure of a half a million households in energy arrears. That's not correct, and what was reported on RTE was not correct. It took them quite a while to even correct it. Commission for Regulation of Utilities actually called that out. There are many arrears are too high, energy prices are too high, and we need to get them down. Don't dispute that at all. When you look at all that's been done with that half a million figure is adding the gas arrears to the electricity arrears, and there are many households, unfortunately, that are across both. So saying 500,000 households are in arrears is just not true, and the record should be corrected on that, and it should have been corrected on our national broadcaster, but it wasn't because it didn't suit their narrative. What I would say is this, when you look at the 90 days arrears, the 90 days I think that everyone in arrears is counted from the first day, so from day one of a bill is not paid, and we do need to help people to get out of that situation. You're looking at about eight percent of electricity customers, about 184,000 households, still too high, colleagues, absolutely. But let's deal with the facts, and let's not go down that route of effectively looking at the bigger figure, because it'll get more prominence. To say, though, within it, look, it's good we're having a discussion, particularly on data and ICT and data centres. Pity Deputy Paul Murphy and Ruth Coplinger are always very constructive remarks here in the Chamber, and every single... They're the ones who opposed the Climate Act, by the way. The Climate Act has really been able to ensure that Ireland is moving towards those climate obligations that we have. But on data, Ireland is not a large industrial nation. We don't make cars, we don't make military equipment, we don't have large industrial companies in this country. What we do have, though, is a very substantial ICT sector, employing just short of 200,000 people, around 185,000 people. So, and the data centre is 19,000, but supporting all those other jobs, we're at the leading edges of technology. Many of our young people, the best in the world at this. So, we need an infrastructure that actually supports that. And data centres are part of that. Absolutely. So, if we look at people saying 22% of our energy is being used through data centres, yes, that's correct. That is correct. But if I go to Germany and say, how much energy in Germany is used for large industrial development in Germany? Car manufacturing, all of those various different things, okay? So, what I'm saying to you is, that's why we brought forward the Large Energy User Action Plan and the decision of Crewe in relation to large energy users, okay? It's a plan-led approach going forward. Any new data connections will have to be on the basis of bringing 80% renewables, new renewables, not existing renewables. So, this idea that it's existing renewables being used up is not correct, and we need that plan-led approach. And I support the ICT sector. I support new jobs. I support new technologies. It's good for us as a country, as a small, open economy as well. And we cannot be complacent about that. And the idea that we would pull the shutters down again on this is not correct, but it has to be done in a planned way. And I would agree with many contributions from the opposition who have said that. How in the short term can we continue to protect families and businesses here? Retrofitting is critical, okay? So, if I look at, many were talking, Deputy Healy, earlier on, in relation to middle-income families being able to access grants. That is specifically why I've brought forward the retrofitting passport for households, broken down the grants, so that we're not just doing deep retrofits. So, we're allowing windows and doors. We're allowing adding insulation. We're allowing wall cavity insulation. All of those various different things. Solar as well, at scale. So, if I look at it, since we've changed, actually, go back when we started retrofitting, about 268,000 homes across the country now are retrofitted to various different degrees. That does protect them to a large degree against future price shocks, reduces their energy usage, reduces their emissions, makes their homes warmer, more efficient. And we need to accelerate that. So, the first quarter of this year, we 12,000 homes upgraded under the scheme, including 1,500 under the Warmer Homes scheme, at risk of energy poverty. And since the formation of this government, actually 70,000 homes have been retrofitted. But the purpose of the change in the grants is to ensure that people and households can access them. And we've seen an absolutely incredible response to that, where we've had over 50,000 applications in the first four months of this year. And that includes significant applications on solar. And we want to do more there with regard to battery. So, that's households. 5,000 businesses retrofitted. Of course, we can do more. But we're targeting 73,000 households this year to be retrofitted. Be the largest ever done in any given year. And actually building up a really good sector, domestic sector, and domestic expertise, new Irish companies there, and particularly in our rural areas as well. This really speaks towards regional development. What are we doing at a national level in relation to our grid and in relation to energy? We now have reached a really significant figure of 8 gigawatts of renewable energy integrated into our system. And yes, of course, we need to do more. 1 gigawatt power is about 500,000 homes. So, that's what we're talking about. If we look at the solar, which, well, our wind capacity, firstly, has doubled in 10 years. Doubled that capacity. We've added 5 gigawatts of renewables in just a 10-year period. We look at solar as well. It will be probably 3 gigawatts by the end of this year alone. Okay? So, 3 gigawatts by the end of this year. Over a gigawatt in rooftop solar. We want to continue to support households there. I am looking at measures with regard to batteries. I think that would be domestic batteries. And I have asked, actually, the ESB as well to look at the whole area of balcony or plug-in solar, as it's called there as well. So, these are things that are critically needed. But what's also critically needed is investment in our grid. So, four arguments. I can use one example of a capital project that should have been done already that needs to be done without delay, which is the Northside Interconnector. But four reviews of the Northside Interconnector, underground versus overground, all of these various different things. That's done now. No more reviews. Needs to happen. Three local authorities need to issue the discharge of the planning consents, and we need to get building it. And I just returned from a conference this morning with my colleague in the North, Kiva Archibald, and the executive in the North are in absolute agreement on that as well. That one piece of infrastructure will do more for resilience on our ‑‑ of resilience for our electricity grid, excuse me, than any other project. And that needs to start. And I would expect that we would get cross‑party support, both government and opposition, to commence the work on this and to deliver that project by 2031, which is still exacting. That will deliver affordability. In relation to offshore wind, the target was ‑‑ Deputy Gogerty mentioned this as well, and it was 5 gigawatts by 2030. The planning consents and all the way through have delayed that. We're expecting hopefully two positive decisions of two of those projects coming out of planning this year. So my target is getting them into construction this year. That would be a game changer for us. I absolutely agree. But in the meantime, we need more onshore wind. We need more onshore solar. To answer questions some deputies have raised about the wind energy guidelines as well, the revisals, they will be published and brought this year. Okay? So ‑‑ and I get the point in that regard. That will be done this year between work that I'm doing with Minister Brown. Thank the Labour Party colleagues for the motion. Decent debate. Won't be accepting the motion. We'll look forward to continuing to working with you on a constructive basis.