Select Committee on Environment and Climate Action debate -
Tuesday, 25 Jun 2024

This meeting is being convened to consider the Further Revised Estimate for Vote 29, programmes A, B and C. I welcome Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his officials. The proposed format for today's meeting is that we will deal with Vote 29 on a programme-by-programme basis. At the outset, the Minister will make an opening statement. There are three programmes, and we will consider each of the programmes separately, with questions from members of the committee.

Before we begin, I will read a note on privilege. I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against either a person outside of the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way to make him or her identifiable. I remind members that they are only allowed to participate in the meeting if they are physically located on the Leinster House complex. I ask those who are joining us online confirm they are on the grounds of Leinster House prior to making their contribution to the meeting.

I call the Minister to make his opening statement.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to present the 2024 Further Revised Estimates for programmes A, B and C of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The further Revised Estimate was required due to the recent transfer of marine planning-related functions from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to my Department. These functions include the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, and the regulation of foreshore activities, which are critical to our marine planning system. These are covered under programme C, circular economy development. The Further Revised Estimate for programme D, the connectivity and communications programme, will be considered by the transport and communications select committee tomorrow.

The total provision for the Department this year is €1.216 billion, comprising of just under €228 million in current and €988 million in capital expenditure. While this represents a 39% decrease over last year’s allocation, when funding of €926.606 million for last year’s electricity credit scheme is taken into consideration, the 2024 provision represents a 14% increase over the original 2023 Estimate for the Department. This demonstrates the Department’s continued commitment to transforming Ireland into a climate-neutral, circular and connected economy and society.

I wish to outline some key priorities across the climate action and environment leadership, energy transformation and circular economy programme areas. More than €138.3 million has been allocated to programme A, which supports climate action and environment leadership, and includes licensing and enforcement; monitoring, analysis and reporting on the environment; research and development and implementation of climate action measures. This programme provides €46.6 million in operational and capital funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to deliver its range of functions to protect our environment.

The allocation includes funding for 38 additional staff across a number of policy areas, including the circular economy, climate change, licensing and energy security. Some €17.1 million is allocated for environmental and climate research, including €12.1 million for EPA research activities in line with its published research strategy. In addition, funding of €4 million is allocated for the climate action and modelling group to continue its work in providing technical support for wider climate and environment policy development. Funding is also included for phase 2 of the land use review to provide an evidence base to determine the environmental, ecological and economic characteristics of land types across Ireland. A sum of €26.5 million is allocated to our international climate commitments towards Ireland’s goal to more than double its annual funding for developing countries to tackle climate change to €225 million by 2025. Some €9.6 million is provided to the national just transition fund to facilitate innovative projects that contribute to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the wider midlands region. Just under €27 million is allocated under the EU Just Transition Fund programme, of which €14.5 million is allocated for initiatives administered by my Department, and €12.5 million is allocated to other Departments involved in the programme. This will result in up to €169 million of investment in the midlands region over the coming years. Nearly €9.5 million is being provided for climate initiatives, which include the climate action regional offices, national dialogue on climate action and a local authority climate action training programme.

Under programme B, more than €544 million has been allocated for the energy transformation programme, which provides support to help Ireland achieve a high-renewable, low-carbon system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The programme aims to ensure continued secure and reliable energy supplies necessary to support our economy and society on the pathway to net zero emissions. Some €30.2 million is being provided to cover the operational costs of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. This includes funding for an additional staff resource to enable it to deliver on its wide range of programmes. A record €444 million is allocated for residential and community energy upgrade and support schemes, including the solar PV scheme, and to support the delivery of the national retrofit plan. Of this amount, €380 million is from carbon tax receipts, which is an increase of €89 million over last year. A sum of €12.3 million is provided for other energy efficiency programmes, including supports for the business and public sectors. Funding of €5.8 million is provided for a number of support schemes from the energy efficiency national fund and €63 million is provided for the public sector pathfinder programme from the climate action fund. These measures administered by the SEAI are aimed at improving energy efficiency, increasing the use of renewable energy and developing retrofit policy and measures. Some €5.8 million in capital funding is provided for measures to lay the groundwork for Ireland to deliver on its national and legally binding renewable energy targets and maximising the potential of our offshore renewable energy sources. A total of €25.4 million is provided for energy research programmes, including applied energy research and demonstration programmes and projects. This investment in innovative energy research projects is crucial in helping Ireland to transition to a clean and secure energy future for us all.

More than €124 million is allocated to programme C, circular economy development, to tackle environmental damage, manage waste, safeguard our natural resources and support the move to a circular economy. Some €14.8 million is provided for Geological Survey Ireland, GSI, services for geoscience projects, research and activities, including improved groundwater and drinking water supply, the supply of critical raw materials, tackling coastal vulnerability and geothermal energy development. A total of €35.1 million is allocated to protect our environment through waste management initiatives and enforcement activities by local authorities. This includes €18.5 million for the remediation of environmentally degraded landfill sites. Some €37.9 million is provided for the conservation, management and regulation of Ireland’s inland fisheries resource. More than €4 million of this allocation is ring-fenced for the Loughs Agency, a North-South body. A sum of €2.6 million is provided in respect of foreshore, to support the regulation of the Irish foreshore as part of the public estate through the assessment and management of the consent process under the Foreshore Act 1933.

A total of €7.8 million is provided for the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority to deliver on its remit as a regulator for the maritime area through assessing maritime area consent applications for the maritime area, granting marine licensing for specified activities, conducting investigations and prosecutions, and enforcing maritime area consents, licences and offshore development consents.

Appropriations-in-aid, which are income receipts of the Department other than from the Exchequer, are estimated at €9.1 million in 2024. Receipts are mainly comprised of mining income, additional superannuation contributions payable by public servants and miscellaneous income.

I am happy to take questions relating to the Revised Estimates for programmes A to C, inclusive.

I thank the Minister. I will now take questions from members on programme A. In posing their questions, I ask that they clearly indicate the programme subhead to which they are referring and limit questions to one subhead at a time. I will allow other members with questions on that subhead to speak before we move on to the next subhead. The same procedure will apply to our discussion on the remaining programmes.

Does Deputy Farrell have a question on programme A?

There is no allocation to the carbon fund this year. In previous years, the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, purchased energy credits to meet Ireland's international emissions reduction requirements. There is no such requirement this year. That is why it features as a zero item under the subhead. The allocation was €2.9 million in the previous year. Compliance costs relating to the climate targets for 2030 are more likely to arise in the latter part of this decade. There are not yet any immediate costs to the State in that regard.

I welcome the substantial increase in the allocation for the just transition under subhead A8. This shows there is progress in getting good projects off the ground. The Minister mentioned the significant overall investment of €169 million in the midlands. Is provision being made under this subhead for the establishment this year of the just transition commission? The deadline for nominations to the commission close this week, if not today. I presume the commission will be established thereafter. Will it go head on an administrative basis or will we see early legislation to underpin it?

I have another question on a different subhead.

I do not know the programme under which it falls. The Minister mentioned that the land use review is being funded under programme A. I am interested in an update on where we are with setting targets for land use, land use change and forestry, LULUCF. The estimation has jumped around quite radically as to what the environmental impact will be of land use and land use change. The review will be eagerly awaited as it seeks to benchmark where we are and where we might hope to arrive. I am interested to hear the Minister's comments on that.

Deputy Bruton asked about the just transition fund. I am interested in the answer to his question on the just transition commission.

I want to acknowledge that it is very significant increased funding for the fund. There is in the region of 106 different projects. I have a question regarding the oversight of managing them. There were specific objectives or areas of focus within those projects. How were they managed and governed?

First, on the just transition commission, I was very pleased that the task force, chaired very ably, has delivered a recommendation for Government which we will now implement, initially on a standing basis but with further legislation to come to give it legislative strength. The fact that each of the social partners - business, unions, NGOs, environmental NGOs, farming groups and social justice groups - were centrally involved gives it real strength. The report it did and the recommendations it made for how we approach the future of the just transition commission are very solid and I will spend a lot of my time this autumn implementing them and making sure the legislative process is delivered.

The costs for that are included in subhead A7. There is about €0.5 million included for just transition initiatives, which also includes a number of other research projects, such as an ex poste evaluation of the just transition fund in the midlands region to see how it has worked and support for the National Economic and Social Council, which has done really extensive work in terms of thinking about how we define this whole issue of just transition and how we deliver it. The answer to the Deputy's question is that it is progressing. Kieran Mulvey has said the group has finished its work and we now go to the implementation phase, initially on a non-statutory basis, but with a view to putting in place the legislation the task force has suggested.

With regard to the land use review, I had a very useful meeting last week with Geraldine Tallon, who is chairing the overall work, and with Dr. Rory O'Donnell, formerly of NESC. Dr. O'Donnell and Professor Mark Scott are chairing the two subgroups looking at the scientific aspects of this. Dr. O'Donnell is looking also at how we get broader buy-in and engagement.

Deputy Bruton is correct that the science here keeps changing. We know that the issue of our forestry being the source of emissions rather than the sink emissions was much larger than we thought and that made the land use issue all the more significant. On a better note, we found that some of the Teagasc research, showing that the level of drained land was less than had been originally projected seems to be bearing out to be true and that has improved our emissions profile. We are going to continue to have to deal with land use, but in a slightly different way.

The land use review is due to provide to Government some very significant further research in the October period, which will allow us to assess what we do next. I have just come from a Cabinet meeting, at which we agreed our long-term strategy on climate change and land use is central in that. We all know agriculture is not going to go to zero emissions on its own. There will still be cattle and sheep and other emissions coming from agriculture. The secret will be in storing a lot of carbon through rewetting of bogs and through significant extension of forestry. We are aiming to go from 11% to 18% forestation cover by 2050. That on its own will store some 5 million tonnes of carbon and in that, the land use review has to help us in not telling an individual landowner what they have to do but telling us what sort of incentives we need in place to get the land use in rewetting, bogland rehabilitation as well as forestation and good grassland management. That land use review is progressing.

It is one of six task forces that I set up to deliver on our climate ambitions. A number of others have been set up since as the model is working so well. However, the land use one is probably the most challenging issue. It is the one that needs to make the most progress and involves, critically, other Departments like the Department of agriculture and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

All these task forces are designed to get people outside of silos. This will continue, I think, to provide very useful information, and it is very much part of an iterative process because, as the Deputy said, the science keeps changing when it comes to land use emissions.

Yes. It was remiss of me not to wish the Minister well on his decision not to contest the next election, like me. We will probably wash up on other shores. I hope so. He has done some wonderful work in the Department, which I think has been acknowledged in the media.

One recurring theme for me is these outputs and outcomes that are being published as part of the RES. I just do not believe the Department or any Department is keeping them relevant. They would inform the debates we have here on where money should be spent. They should be reviewed every year, and we should see fresh indicators. I know it will come up later but, on the circular economy, there is no mention in the outcomes or outputs of most of the issues on which people focus. Even here, I wonder about some of these targets. I see that new ones have been introduced for particulate matter. I do not know whether these targets represent improvement or deterioration. It is not explained whether going from a target of 19% to 32% for particulate matter is an improvement. We should have an Estimates debate in which there is some more meaningful link between the money we are voting on and the outcomes and outputs we are being offered as grounds for these Estimates.

I wish Deputy Bruton the very best of luck as well on those new shores that lie ahead of us all. I very much appreciate his kind comments.

I agree with him. How do you narrow down some measures, such as improving air quality, to one single measure? My understanding of that output measure, the PM10s going from 19% to 32%, is that it is good news because that is the percentage of stations currently above the 2030 target set out in the clean air strategy, so that is greater progress.

I take the Deputy's point. I will be honest and upfront. I sometimes find, particularly on budget day, or even in subsequent discussions, as a Minister, even as a TD, not to mention as a layperson, that it is very hard to assess where some of the spending is going and what some of the outcomes are. We need to continually look at that. It is important we have measures. Take the issue of air quality. I recently met the EPA and I asked them if we are starting to see the benefits of the change in the solid fuels regulations which we introduced some two years ago, and they said "Yes", that they are discernible and measurable. In areas such as that you will need to go down to very precise numeric measures of pollutants, so I accept the Deputy's point. The individual output targets selected may be or are sometimes hard to understand or see as a comprehensive picture, but it is important we measure progress and the consequences of the spending. To take that example, that is not a small change; it is almost an 80% improvement in air quality. It will benefit people's day-to-day lives in a very dramatic way.

Yes. Thank you, Chairman. I had a question about air quality monitoring, and that is whether the Department believes there is a sufficient network of air quality monitoring. The Minister has answered the question somewhat, but further information would be welcomed.

My other question relates to land use, and specifically to afforestation.

I received an email this morning from an organisation called the Social Economic Environmental Forestry Association, SEEFA, stating that, so far this year, we have reached a total of 650 ha, which is the monthly target. Given the pace at which we are afforesting, do we have any hope of reaching our target for 2030? Is there anything we can do in the Estimates to improve our chances of achieving that goal?

It is the Minister for agriculture who has primary responsibility for the delivery of afforestation levels. I will, however, make a broad point. The Deputy is correct. The scale of new afforestation we will need - I am speaking from memory here - is approximately 8,000 ha per annum if we are to meet the 2030 target. I will be honest; the long-term strategy agreed in Cabinet today indicates we need to increase that figure to approximately 30,000 ha per annum to achieve a target of 5 million tonnes of carbon storage. In truth, we must see a dramatic increase. We have done it in the past. In the early 1990s, the figure was 20,000 ha or more of afforestation, so it is not impossible for the sector to deliver that.

I am very confident that the new forestry programme will see a major increase, not just in traditional afforestation methods but also in agri-forestry, an area I am particularly interested and in which farming can continue at the same time as a significant improvement in afforestation. There are also the riparian and other 1 ha forestry programmes. The programme has been agreed in Government and has been budgeted for in the €1.3 billion fund provided. It is not a lack of financial resources.

As I understand it, the premiums are tax-free and the timber product at the end of the process is also tax free and can be passed on. It is a very attractive financial package. The difficulties have been in our licensing system and those have been resolved. There was a lack of confidence which was perhaps a legacy of the ash dieback issue. The Government has moved to resolve that by providing significant payments to those who have experienced ash dieback.

I expect the new forestry numbers to start climbing dramatically, as they must because, as the Deputy said, we need a tenfold increase.

On air quality, although I do not have the figures in front of me, there has been a dramatic improvement in the number of live real-time stations. There has been very significant investment in that area.

To highlight a further development I am looking at, I recently received an interesting presentation from an Irish company which is looking at low-cost sensor equipment that could be put on telephone masts. My recollection is that Microsoft is looking to put it on some of its antennae and using it almost as a citizen science air quality monitoring system. It is not just the official Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, function but it is the ability to use the Internet of things, with wireless connected remote sensory systems to improve our air quality monitoring. In that case, it is not just air quality monitoring for human health with regard to particulate matter but also the potential for measuring methane, nitrous oxides, ammonia and other greenhouse gases in the air. This will help, for example, organisations to monitor and assess their own emissions. There are many more devices coming to measure air quality, not just for human health but for environmental back-up. That is where we want to go.

Specifically on B4, residential and community retrofit programmes, I have received replies to parliamentary questions on the costs associated with the average retrofit costs bringing units to a B2 rating. There appears to be a very significant difference within the one-stop-shop service. I do not know if the Minister has the figures in front him. The average cost in 2022 was around €34,000. In 2023 it was €47,000 and so far in 2024, it was €57,000. That compares to the fully-funded energy upgrades which went from around €24,000 to €27,000 down to €25,000. The one-stop-shop seems to be a real outlier in terms of the cost of works to get to a B2. Is the Minister aware of that? Is he concerned about it? Can he account for it? Does it impact the ability to fund the 500,000 B2 units to 2030? Is it a feature of the type of work being done or is it the case that there is price gouging within the sector? Has the Minister any other answer for it? I take on board the challenge of scaling up and doing it at pace, getting contractors and so on but nevertheless, we need to ensure there is some containment on costs.

We have one of the most successful retrofitting programmes in Europe. I was in Brussels some weeks ago and the association looking at energy efficiency in homes said that we have the highest per capita retrofitting of any European country. I do not know that but I take the person at their word. It was very encouraging because it is working. There will be 52,000 SEAI-supported home energy upgrades this year. That is phenomenal. Had we said that ten or six years ago, people would have doubted it. Almost 21,000 will be to B2. Now, we need to go up. To meet our 2030 targets that needs to be in the order of 70,000 but I contend that as neighbours see their neighbours houses improving, that will further encourage people to have it done. In particular, the low-cost home energy loans, which only now are starting to come in, are allowing those who previously could not avail of the grants to do so.

The Deputy’s figures are broadly correct. The one-stop-shop scheme tends to be more expensive or a bigger investment. Typically, the average grant element of that is €22,500. I have high figures of what the average cost is for private homes. The figures I have are some €63,000 so it is roughly one third grant and two thirds paid for by the householder. I do not believe that is price fixing or gouging because it is a very competitive market.. I think we have 18 one-stop-shops or more. I think it is 20 now and it continues to grow and people can shop around. They are all for deeper retrofit. That is the benefit of the one-stop-shop.

Everything I am talking about here is to B2 standard or higher. My point is whether there has been a cross-comparison between schemes and the one-stop-shop which is significantly more expensive and year on year, it has been increasingly expensive. I take on board the points the Minister has already made but I am asking him to get under the bonnet of that and see what the contributory factor are. They may be entirely legitimate. It may be that the scale of the work being done by different houses is entirely different but it may not be.

I think it is because they are bigger, in that they tend to be bigger homes or it tends to be a more detailed extensive job. The warmer homes scheme sometimes does not include all the different measures.

It is a sign of more work done, not higher prices applying. It is the same industry, in many instances the same contractors, and the same skills, so I do not see why one project would be overpriced and another less so. It is just more work being done.

It is not included in these costings. I have had a series of ongoing meetings with officials in the Department. Gas Networks Ireland has been supporting the analysis that has been done. There are a number of measures, legislative as well as financial, that would be required to deliver it, so I am assessing further that analysis from GNI and the Department and will come back to the Government in the coming months.

May I ask the Minister about the energy poverty programmes? I see they are moving along around the 6,000 mark, and I know that much deeper retrofits are being done than used to be done, but has the Department commissioned any research to see where we are with the number of people who are eligible under the national fuel scheme, how many have been reached and what sorts of homes people who are in that very low-income category are in? It strikes me that we may need to target some measures at getting the lower levels of retrofit done on homes people on very low incomes are living in as well as doing the deeper work. Does the Department have that sort of research to see if we have over time reached a target group of families in those categories? Are many still to be reached, and should we be looking at measures that are targeted at low-income families or pensioners who are in particularly poor homes from an energy efficiency point of view?

It is. Thank you, Chairman. I, too, saw a statistic that showed Ireland per capita was outperforming the rest of Europe. I think it was Eurostat but I am sure that information can be found. My question is about the retrofit programme. Notwithstanding what Deputy O'Rourke said, I think there has been a price escalation but I am sure it is related to inflation. That said, I certainly am seeing an awful lot of activity and, from some of the information that has been provided to me by the SEAI, we certainly are ramping up quite satisfactorily. I have a slight concern, however, about our capacity to keep that going because of labour shortages in the construction sector. I think I saw a ministerial order or missive from the Department of higher education, from the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, about increasing the number of skilled workers in the area. Has the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications or the SEAI conducted any research to indicate whether they have identified or will identify skills shortages in the near future?

My other question relates to the warmth and well-being scheme, in respect of which I see a quite significant increase in the number of people with chronic respiratory conditions receiving energy upgrades. For instance, in 2020, it was 91 while in 2022, it was 174. Do we expect that progression to continue, or is there a peak at which the Department or the SEAI expects it to plateau and, with it, the amount of attention the Department will have to pay to individuals with respiratory conditions?

Will there continue to be a ramping up of the scheme? I ask the Minister to provide more information in that regard.

Deputy Bruton's question relates to some of the material I have been reading today. His question is well timed as these issues are on my mind. At the Cabinet meeting today, we discussed a memorandum on the International Energy Agency, IEA, country review, which I presume will be published later today. The review broadly points out the areas where we are seeing progress and in which Ireland is giving a good example in Europe. One of the IEA's recommendations is that we do more to target households in poverty and experiencing poor fuel conditions. Such households might be using coal or wood products, which may be causing an air quality issue within the home. Bringing the energy rating of a house up from G, E or D gives a much better carbon return than what we get from bringing a C rating up to a B2. We will look at that.

As Deputy Farrell said, a key issue is capacity within the workforce. The initiative announced at the Cabinet today by the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, is specifically to do with improving skills in regard to the installation of heat pumps. That is probably the one area where we need to see a real increase. The other parts of the retrofitting programme are working really well. To meet our heat pump targets, we really need to ramp up the number of pump installations, particularly to replace oil- and gas-fired boilers. The Minister's announcement today relates to a very specific and targeted training programme for plumbers regarding heat pump installation.

From talking to the SEAI and the Department, I am aware that the wider market is showing a significant increase in contractor availability. There is not quite the same constraint there was two to three years ago, which was causing some of the price increases. That constraint is starting to wane. My sense from talking to people in the industry is that they have the capability and capacity now to do more, which they did not have two years ago. One of the areas we should and will look at is further increasing the capacity of the warmer homes scheme. To answer Deputy Bruton's point, some 400,000 families are in receipt of fuel allowance. We have only started to scratch the surface of the potential market for the scheme. This is a three-decade project. By the end of the 2040s, we expect every Irish home to be fit for purpose in terms of low-carbon energy and heating systems. That would have an incredible impact in terms of alleviating food poverty and other health benefits. It is a multi-decade effort. It goes right back to the climate plan Deputy Bruton, as Minister, introduced in 2018, when we started this perspective of making progress decade by decade.

The warmer homes scheme takes slightly more than half the revenue we get from the carbon tax per year, which is not insignificant. Last year, that figure was €327 million. This year, it will be €444 million. There is a huge expansion of the scheme. The allocation goes up automatically every year, without being caught up in the budget cycle. Consequently, we know it will be up to €500 million next year and will increase again the following year. That certainty gives the industry a real confidence to train people.

The ESRI is doing ongoing research for us on energy poverty. We will look at how we can further improve the warmer homes scheme, not just in terms of reducing the two-year timeframe or gap but also thinking about how we can target the households most in need. That will include, as Deputy Farrell mentioned, targeting those with particular health issues. The warmth and well-being scheme is not the only relevant measure. In the middle of the energy crisis, the Government introduced measures to help householders who were very high users of electricity, including those using medical equipment in the home. We put in solar panels to help them.

We should and will continue to monitor and target the most vulnerable sectors. That is one of the recommendations of the IEA country review which will also be published today.

I heard what the Minister has said about the investment in the better energy, warmer homes scheme. All of us will have been contacted by constituents about delays in the waiting time to avail of that scheme. First, does the Minister have the information to hand on the timeframe for individuals waiting for the assessment and then from the assessment being successful to works actually beginning? Second, on retrofitting, the Minister mentioned local authority units. That seems to be quite slow. Does that rest with each local authority itself or is there a national push from the Minister's Department to try to use the money for retrofitting purposes? Third, there was an announcement today that two new banks are coming on stream on the home energy upgrade grant scheme. What are the Minister's thoughts on the uptake of those loans?

As I said earlier, it is roughly a two-year wait. That is unsatisfactory but it is a function of a massive increase in demand. One can understand if someone owns their own home and can apply for a 100% grant, which is not insignificant, with the average being a €25,000 improvement in their home, that is a very attractive prospect for many people. The only way we can bring that waiting time down is allocating further budgets. We look at that in the budget period. It already collects slightly more than half of the overall allocation. It has dramatically increased. I was looking at the figures earlier. It went from €20 million or €30 million five years ago up to about €230 million or some such number now. It is beyond compare how much it has expanded. It is a tenfold increase, and that will continue because it brings real social benefits and tackles fuel poverty at source. Unfortunately, I cannot promise a reduction of that timeframe because the more we improve the budget, the more houses apply. It is a matter of catching up all the time.

The question of local authorities is a matter for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Each local authority has to decide how it manages its operations. I will be honest and upfront that, from an outside perspective, I always felt it might not have been the central business for the local authorities. They may have been focused on new home building. However, there have been very good models. I have been out around councils and have seen examples, such as in Sligo, for instance, which did a really interesting job in how it introduced it in its council estates. It will continue to expand and grow. It is a much smaller budgetary allocation each year. From memory, it was €85 million last year. It is not insignificant but that means, divided among the 30-odd councils, it is a relatively smaller operation and, because of that, it suffers somewhat because it does not get the scaling up that aggregation brings.

One issue we will look at is to bring together some of the local authority schemes with some of the work we are doing with AHBs or the other schemes so that even if some of it is council housing and some is privately owned, is it all done at the one time. That might help local authorities to scale up their operations.

On the loan question, it only started last month. I understand, as the Deputy noted, that AIB launched today with rates of around 3%. That is up to €75,000 unsecured over ten years. That is as good as you can get in lending proposals.

I do not have any update yet on the numbers. It was always going to take a few months even to process them so we will not know until later this year. The market rates are probably 8% or 9%. That allows people to avail of the grants, which might cut their costs by a third. The lower bills for ten years will pay the cost of the loan and the person's house will be worth substantially more at the end of it. It really is very attractive. It is the first scheme of its kind. The EIB has not done it anywhere else. This is the first time it has been tried in this way. It is going to take off. I am very glad AIB and Bank of Ireland have launched today.

Going back to the circular economy strategy, we have had legislation and the Minister has commissioned work, which I think is called a gap analysis. However, we are two years from that legislation and I am concerned that the creation of circular economy strategies for each sector is quite delayed. I have always advocated here and elsewhere that we should bring the sectors together already, even if only on a voluntary basis without the statutory targets the Minister is working on. I would be interested to know when we will see those. In addition, bearing in mind that the targets will be dramatically different, will he review the outputs and outcomes? The only one being tracked here is waste diversion from landfill. We want to see reuse targets, material use targets, not just recycling targets but recovery for high-value use within a circular economy strategy. While I have a moment to be on my hobby-horse, the advantage of the circular economy is that it integrates climate change, biodiversity loss and waste generation into one approach. There is real merit in that and in building public understanding of the scale of the challenge that we have across these headings. I would like to hear about where we are in respect of seeing sectoral strategies emerge.

The Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, has key responsibility in this area so he would be much better able to go into the fine detail. That first circular economy strategy 2021 has to be replaced with an update or a further iteration. That is set out under the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022. It has to include sectoral targets. My understanding is that it will come before the end of this year. It is top priority for the Minister of State. To inform that, a circularity gap report has been prepared to have a better understanding of the levers of change moving to a circular economy and the benefits that will come. The further iteration, which has to be delivered under statute and has to have sectoral targets, will come before the end of this year. I am conscious that the Government has a certain period of time. We are keen to get as many of those measures as possible delivered in its lifetime.

Even now we could not convene groups that would take on this discussion within food, construction and the key sectors we are interested in. It will be tricky for the Minister to set specific reuse targets for construction, for example, because there are a lot of moving parts. However, the need to have the sector thinking about how it can adopt more circular approaches is urgent. We still have sites where everything is just thrown into a big skip and nothing can be recovered. It all becomes waste. It seems that there is an opportunity to build some momentum even ahead of these targets. It will be challenging to set them as well as to reach them.

I agree. One of the strengths is that it was started initially during the Deputy's time as Minister on a basis of engaging and informing stakeholders, giving them a clear line of sight in terms of what is coming next, which is important. The EPA is doing a lot of good work in promoting this as well, I understand, particularly in the construction sector.

I always remember my time formerly as a councillor on Dublin City Council on realising that over a third of our landfill waste was construction demolition waste, which has a reuse and value. The EPA and our Department are working with that sector. We do have funding under the circular economy programmes to fund support for that work. The sector targets, while difficult, will be important in giving clear signals.

In programme C, on the number of active minerals prospective licences, the 2022 target was 450, the 2023 target was 400 and the 2024 target is 375. Is the plan into the future for that number to continue to come down? Obviously, a current feature in the world economy is of major sacrifice zones being created, particularly in the global south, due to the mining for lithium and other minerals or rare earths. It points to a problem with the idea that the economy can keep going as it is, albeit with a shift of everything from fossil fuels to electric. In doing so, we fly past a bunch of other planetary boundaries, as well as carbon emissions and greenhouse gases.

Obviously, there is a danger that those sacrifice zones also come to Ireland. There are no current licences for mining for lithium in Ireland but prospecting is going on and a licence for prospecting at Moylisha, where I spoke to one of the campaigners. How does the Minister see this playing out? I note in the Government's policy statement on mineral exploration that it discusses sustainable exploration, mining and the contribution that can make. Can the Minister outline how that will happen, as opposed to the construction of sacrifice zones, damages to water quality, impacts on biodiversity and so on, like we see in the global south?

First, the reduction in numbers does not set out any policy. It is just indicative of a lower level of exploration for a variety of reasons. These things go through cycles and countries go through phases of fashion where prospecting may be attractive or not. I would not draw any policy conclusions from that. I agree with what I understand to be the Deputy's broad premise, as we must be careful. First, however, we must electrify everything. That is the way forward and that will require quite a variety of different minerals with copper being the most significant constrained mineral but also cobalt, lithium and a whole variety of rare minerals, as the Deputy noted. This could also include aluminium, steel and other resources. It is not free of its own requirements. I agree with the Deputy that we have to avoid a situation where the mining for such materials would only occur in developing countries where there might be lower environmental or social standards. We need to make sure that the same standards apply right across the world.

I have some knowledge of those countries, as I have been involved to a certain extent in the past year through some work in the International Energy Agency in this regard. It wants to see development coming with climate action. The secret to improving environmental standards is having accurate reporting, accounting and traceability mechanism rules in order that it can be seen where materials are coming from and what are the standards on which they are developed and produced. We need to and will apply the same here.

In respect of most of the licensing work in my term of office over the past four years, there have not been any mining applications, as far as I can recall. It typically tends to be prospecting licences, which are, by and large, approved unless there is good reason not to do so. It is in our interest to try to see if there are rare earth materials. I cite Tara Mines as an example of success, in a sense, although one of the biggest challenges there has been its recent closure. Lisheen Mine is another example where the local community was very supportive and engaged in working in the mines and benefited from local mining. It is not impossible for us to develop a more sustainable mining culture.

The issue will only become very much more centre stage if and when there is a discovery found and I am not aware of any at the present time.

Yes. The ability to draw down the funds in a speedy manner has been somewhat frustrating. An example is district heating in Dublin city, a project with which the Deputy will be very familiar. This was originally funded under the climate action fund in 2017 to 2018, from memory, and it has not been able to get the business case to full tendering. I expect that to happen in the coming days, if not weeks.

There are a number of other projects which we will be assessing and I hope to support. I will give the Deputy an example. We recently launched a biomethane strategy where we are looking to develop anaerobic digestion. We will use the climate fund as a capital grant support system for such projects in advance, all going well, of the allocation of funding from the infrastructure, climate and nature fund to that type of project. The climate fund would provide a very useful interim funding mechanism to get things off the ground.

A similar example, again from memory, is the retrofitting of public buildings. Where there is no budget allocation, the fund could help as some Government Departments could use it in that way. Other areas include sustainable mobility hubs and some of the other Pathfinder projects in transport.

There are a number of different projects which I will bring to the Department to get approval for under the fund. Our biggest challenge has been the ability to turn applications around and deploy capital quickly. That needs to improve.

I would not like to see the elimination of the concept of calls. With projects being stalled, the Minister sees this as removing barriers, which is appropriate and I understand the reason for that. However, it is desirable to keep some element of the idea of issuing calls and forming groups of councils, enterprises, and whoever else, to initiate some projects.

I take the Deputy's point. There are sufficient projects which are ready, need to be funded and do not have other funding mechanisms. I do not want to give false promises in setting up a call when in actual fact a good chunk of the funding the Deputy mentioned will be deployed for necessary projects which we know we need to fund straightaway.

As there are no other questions, I will finish by echoing Deputy Bruton's words. I do not want to be presumptuous as this may not be the Minister's final appearance before the committee. We will see how things go in the next few months but it may be his last appearance. The Minister's engagements with the committee have always been very thorough, professional and informative and we appreciate the way in which he has approached those engagements. On behalf of the committee, I thank him for all of those engagements. We wish him well given that he is not seeking re-election and may not be before the committee again. To echo Deputy Bruton's words, we wish the Minister and Deputy Bruton himself well on whatever shores they get washed up on post election.