I was great to hear the Taoiseach mentioning No Mow May. If he would like a beehive, I will give him one. I have 17. I know the Department of justice has them on the roof; it would be great to see them on Government Buildings as well. Constantly in this House I have raised the issue of private wires and the current system of energy. I was elected to this House seven months after I finished my master's degree in DCU, which focused on data centres and waste heat utilisation. One of the main things we learned about was the current system of EirGrid and ESB, and its failures. When I found myself involved in Government formation, one of the priorities for me was private wires. My Bill is ready. I have submitted it to the Bills Office. I see the frustration across the country about our energy costs. EirGrid has had nine months to put a code index into the grid to fix an issue. Because data centres need a constant stream of energy, we need to reduce curtailment and the dispatch down. This code index can help renewable projects. The Irish public is currently paying fossil fuel prices for energy when we have tens if not hundreds of renewable projects waiting for grid connections. Yesterday, I raised the issue of CIÉ charging a solar farm that is ready and built. Over €450,000 has been allocated in respect of a job that will take one day. Why are semi-State companies allowed to charge such an extortionate amount that will eventually end up with the Irish public? The families paying energy bill every month deserve nothing less than action. I will again mention plug-in solar. We are at a point where renewable energy generation is being reduced. We are wasting clean energy while households are paying the price. The concept of a private wire is simple. It is a direct cable from a renewable source such as a solar farm, a wind turbine or a battery energy storage system. There is no grid queue and no six-year wait. My Bill would give more powers to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to have a six-month timeline. In view of people's worries about job losses and the global situation at the moment, we need to increase Irish jobs. We can do so with my Bill. I spent 18 months developing the Bill. I now see why things take time, but it is done and has the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, stamp. It will help SMEs, community energy projects and battery storage. It contains a line that would make any project being used by a private company give a proportionate amount to a community benefit fund. The Government's current proposal for the private wires system limits it to four specific circumstances. My proposal does not. It would help community energy and SMEs, and the CRU confirmed to me at the committee of which I am a member last week - I should be at this week's meeting now - that private wires could facilitate more renewables than might be the case at present. We are losing foreign direct investment to countries with cheaper, cleaner and more certain energy. I was at the wind energy conference yesterday.
Sentiment score: 0.16
Does the Taoiseach agree that it is time to cut the red tape-----
Sentiment score: 0.10
------and back the CRU with more funding in order to enable it to act?
Sentiment score: 0.00
I welcome the progress on the Government's Bill. I hope it will absorb the proposal I am putting forward. The cost to Irish households is already runs into hundreds of millions if not billions of euro because of these delays. I welcome the Government's general scheme. It contains 47 recommendations. I answered as to how my Bill would tackle those 47 recommendations, and I will submit my answers to the Minister. The technology is available. The Taoiseach mentioned battery storage, and I welcome that the Taoiseach met those involved in that regard. We need to make sure that both the eventual Bill and everything that we do in this House prioritise the Irish people. I welcome that CRU oversight has been examined but I would love there to be more engagement on my Bill as a basis for faster delivery and for there to be confirmation that private wires will officially serve SMEs, community energy and the Irish consumers more than large-scale generation. There is a role for large-scale generation. I am not living in the clouds, because I understand that 50,000 jobs are directly or indirectly linked.
Sentiment score: 0.28
There are more jobs to be created. We could get hundreds of thousands of jobs-----
Sentiment score: 0.12
-----for welders, all types of technician and engineers and this is why it needs to be done.
Sentiment score: 0.00