I want to be really clear. The Minister talked about the increase we have seen in renewables. I accept we have seen a large increase but the reality is that is not going to households. That renewable energy is going straight into data centres which are paying half what domestic users are expected to pay for their electricity. So, this is not a good news story for Irish households. It means the Government is prioritising large corporations accessing energy at half the price that individuals have to pay and risking energy security at the same time. Let us not paint this picture that Ireland is a renewable heaven for domestic users; it really is not. The benefits of renewable and the benefits of investment are going straight to data centres. The Government is trying to assist them even further by bringing in the private wires Bill which would essentially set up an alternative private electricity grid to enable data centres to access more renewable energy while leaving domestic homes at a loss. Let us be clear about that. One million homes in Ireland are suitable for solar panels. A mere ten panels could save the average home €450 a year in electricity costs. It is really simple to put solar panels on a home; it takes a matter of hours. When talking about energy poverty and providing energy resilience, solar panels are really a no-brainer for a government to deploy. I do not understand why the Government has not done more in this space. At the moment approximately 150,000 homes have solar panels installed and that is welcome. However, the reality is that those 150,000 homes are homes that could afford to install solar panels. They are probably the homes that can afford to withstand the energy shocks as a result of what is happening in Iran and Ukraine much better than many other homes. The Social Democrats want every person in this country to be able afford to access solar panels so that they can benefit from having cheaper electricity and be protected from energy shocks as the global system turns upside down. That is why we have brought in our policy, solar for all. Really importantly with our policy we want to give free solar for people who are on the warmer home scheme. These are people currently at risk of energy poverty. They are people who get disability allowance, carer's allowance and fuel allowance. The Government needs to roll out an intensive scheme to assist those homes. We also want to see the doubling of grants for households. Many working families are struggling just to keep their head above water even where both partners are working. They are doing everything right and they still cannot get ahead. It is really important that those people can access schemes like the solar panel scheme. For the life of me, I do not understand why the Government cut the grants to those schemes which were so beneficial to people. We also want to see the grants for batteries reinstated because that means that people can actually charge up the batteries when electricity rates are cheaper at night. It just makes sense. We also need to see plug-in solar for apartments. Thousands of people are living in apartments in this country and they have no access to solar. I ask the Minister to look at our policy. He should take it at face value and actually consider it.

Sentiment score: 0.20