I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien,
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
Apprenticeship Programmes
I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for selecting this matter and the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, for making himself available to take it. As education spokesperson for Fianna Fáil, I am very proud of my party's history in the education sphere over the years, including this current period in office. It has certainly been a transformative period despite the many challenges of Covid. We pushed for the establishment of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. We reformed the leaving certificate. We are providing free schoolbooks to all primary school pupils. We have a ten year literacy, numeracy and digital literacy strategy. We have widened and improved Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, which is something I have long advocated. We have expanded the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme, DEIS. One in four students is now availing of the programme. We have also reduced the pupil-teacher ratio to its lowest ever.
As a party, we have also championed the launch of a five year action plan for apprenticeships, and this action plan aims to expand the types of programme available and increase the number of apprenticeships to 10,000 by 2025. I note that it is great to see a lot more women taking up apprenticeships. Approximately five years ago, only 2% of those taking up apprenticeships were women, but that has greatly improved since. This plan will work to ensure equity of access, to ensure under-represented groups are able to avail of apprenticeships, by creating simplified routes to entry and improved flexibility within the system. The fact there is additional support for those within the apprenticeship system, in particular for employers to encourage them to support and to take on apprenticeships through financial assistance and other mechanisms, is really important. This is a real step change in terms of public policy around apprenticeships and I particularly commend the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, on his work to date on this issue within his higher education brief. This strategy brings all apprenticeships together under one roof in a new National Apprenticeship Office.
I fully support the expanded offerings. We need to ensure that we broaden what we mean by education, and that we recognise the needs of the job market and of students. We have skill gaps in our workforce, of that there is no doubt, and apprenticeships are a key element in filling many of those. We have invested heavily in apprenticeships, and that is absolutely the right decision. However, I have had a number of cases recently where the academic elements of certain courses have yet to be confirmed or to take place. I am going to give one particular example, so let us call this young man, John. He took up an apprenticeship on 21 April last year.
He completed all the necessary documentation, as did his employers, within one month. He did not receive any confirmation about where the academic side, his block release in terms of college, would take place. I have followed this up a number of times. I went to the Minister's office and to SOLAS. SOLAS has blamed Covid-related delays for backlogs in admitting this student and others to the college element of their course. At this stage, it is accepted that Covid is no longer a valid excuse. SOLAS came back and told me at the end of September that the student would be in placement in quarter 4 of this year. It is now 10 November 2022 and the student has still not heard anything. This is not good enough. There seems to be lingering delays in the wider apprenticeship sector in terms of these elements and they need to be alleviated. As this young man said, if he went straight into the labouring area of construction, he would be earning three times more. It is hard to keep young people motivated when they are not getting the responses and the opportunities to deal with that essential element of the block release. This would allow them to study and further their own career within the apprenticeship area. I would like to know what is happening to alleviate this issue.
I would like to thank Senator O'Loughlin for her question on this very important issue for the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. Apprenticeship is a demand-driven educational and training programme, which aims to develop the skills of an apprentice in order to meet the needs of industry and the labour market. Apprenticeship has undergone transformation over the past six years. The importance of apprenticeships in society, both now and into the future, has never been more apparent than it is today.
The Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025 was launched in April 2021 and sets out new ways of structuring, funding and promoting apprenticeships to make apprenticeship accessible to employers and learners. The actions set out in the plan seek to deliver on a target of 10,000 apprenticeship registrations across a wide range of programmes each year by 2025, thereby fulfilling a key commitment in our programme for Government. Some 25 of the 66 apprenticeship programmes are craft. These experienced a marked increase in interest over the past four years, accounting for more than 80% of the apprentice population. Given the practical nature of off-the-job training for craft apprentices, the Covid-related shutdown of on-site learning, or block release, had a significant impact on their ability to access off-the-job training. Consortia-led apprenticeships were not delayed to the same extent but may have had disruption - for instance, in hospitality programmes.
Craft apprenticeship programmes are demand-led. There are no restrictions on the number of apprentices that can be registered in any single year. Last year saw a record 8,607 registrations overall. This is an increase of nearly 40% compared to 2019, the last normal year, of which 6,955 were craft registrations. Strong registrations are continuing this year. SOLAS, the HEA and education and training providers work together to deliver craft, off-the job training places, and have worked closely to change training delivery. The programmes with the longest waiting lists - electrical, plumbing and carpentry - have been reformed. These changes are now running through the system with increased numbers of apprentices being called to off-the-job training. In addition, all classes which had been running at half capacity under social distancing measures are now back at their full intake.
To ensure that the remainder of the Covid-19 backlog is cleared and the system has the capacity to meet the training needs of rapidly increasing numbers of apprentices, expansion is being funded. For example, capital funding of €20 million was provided in 2020 to extend and upgrade facilities. Expansion is continuing in 2022, with further major investment in workshops and staff planned for this year and beyond. Two large training hubs dedicated to electrical training are being developed for the next three years. Electrical, plumbing, and carpentry programmes are expanding across further and higher education. Electrical workshops are being developed under Kilkenny and Carlow ETB and a further training facility is being developed in Donegal. There is a call for additional phase 2 capacity in craft programmes, including carpentry, plumbing and refrigeration. There is also the expansion of electrical apprenticeships in ATU Donegal and MTU Kerry.
An additional €30 million in once-off funding was secured for apprenticeship in 2023 to help expansion of the system and support the Government's Housing for All and climate goals. Top level data for the end of October has just become available. It shows that 4,937 apprentices are waiting more than six months for their off-the-job training. There has been significant progress made, despite continued strong registrations. For example, nearly 6,000 phase 2 apprentices have completed or commenced their training. Nearly 1,300 more will be trained by year end. More than 7,000 phase 4 and 6 apprentices have completed or are progressing their training and nearly 3,000 more commenced training in September.
Officials in the Department are in continuous engagement with SOLAS, the HEA and other partners. As strong registrations on craft programmes continue, SOLAS is working, and will continue to work, to provide further places to address high numbers of apprentices needing off-the-job places.
I thank the Minister of State for his response. I certainly welcome the capital funding and the expansion that has been put in place. It concerns me when I hear that the top level data for the end of October shows that there are 4,937 apprentices waiting more than six months for their off-the-job training. This is a huge issue. Planning is essential for everybody. Young people who have taken on apprenticeships need to be able to plan accommodation for whichever college they will attend for their off-the-job training. In some instances, they may need to be able to save to buy a car because they will not be able to get accommodation. That is a real concern.
It is very heartening to see the number of apprenticeships being taken up and we are starting to see the parity of esteem that is needed between academia and apprenticeships. I would like to send a very strong message to both Ministers that this needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
This recent data is very concerning. I spoke with an official in the Department this morning and she assured me that those people who are waiting six months and more are going to be prioritised in being moved on to the next phase of their off-site training or block release. It is important to point out that further funding of €17 million has been provided to SOLAS and the HEA to address Covid-related backlogs. Of this, €6 million is being invested in additional instructors with more than 100 additional posts approved. However, I will certainly deliver that message to the two relevant Ministers.
Housing Policy
I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. I extend a warm welcome to our guests in Visitors Gallery. We hope you find this session informative. It is always wonderful to see people coming in and having the opportunity to watch the engagement in the Seanad.
I have huge respect for the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, so what I am going to say is not directed at him personally. More than 100,000 people in this country own apartments that have defects. A question on how that will be addressed deserved to be answered by the senior Minister in the Department who has control of the timeline here. I am somewhat disappointed that he is not here to answer it. I have nothing against the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, who is a very fine worker and a great colleague.
Two weeks ago, the Friday before the bank holiday weekend, my phone lit up. Another set of apartment owners in Dublin South-Central received notification that they could no longer use their underground car park. They were told the waste disposal areas were being moved outside of the complex because a fire officer's enforcement notice had been given to them with a prosecution to follow due to the fact there are fire defects and it was a high risk apartment complex.
That night, people sat around in groups, very distressed, wondering if they were safe putting their children to bed that night in their apartments. If one could not park a car down below, how was it safe to put one's child into an apartment? They do not have any choices. They cannot sell because they can only dispose of the apartment is a cash buyer. They cannot move anywhere else because there is nowhere else to go. This is merely one complex of apartments among 17,000 thousand apartments that are in Dublin South-Central that I am told are affected by this.
I appreciate that we have had a working group and that it produced a fine, thorough and extensive report. It was an excellent piece of work. I appreciate that in September the Minister brought an information memorandum to Cabinet stating that another group was sitting to decide on how there would be redress. It will report before Christmas and apparently options will be brought to Cabinet. I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, will confirm that today. That will involve legislation which means we will be into March or April before there is any redress. Meanwhile there are real-time consequences to this. There are people suffering mental health issues as a consequence. Relationships are breaking down. There are people who cannot meet the bills. If there was a disaster in one of those complexes tonight due to a fire, we would have an awful lot of wringing of hands by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Ministers and we would have action on it the next day but that is not good enough. These families live in risk of the substandard provisions that were put in at the height of the Celtic tiger when there was loose enforcement of regulations. They are in the main suffering the consequences. It is not their fault. Any delay on this is insufferable and intolerable. To be perfectly honest, they need an answer and they need it now.
I appreciate the State grinds slowly but this is not new. This goes back to 2017. December 2017 was when the first report was published by a joint Oireachtas committee on housing - I sit on the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage now - which the Minister sat on as a spokesperson for the Opposition. That report showed the lack of safety within these apartments. It is not okay that there is the slightest delay.
After that Friday night, at approximately 6 o'clock the following morning, I sent out text messages and followed-up with telephone calls to the Department, to the Minister and to the Tánaiste. All of them came back with reassurances, but that is no use if one is sitting in an apartment facing into Christmas - maybe one is a tech employee or something like that - and is looking at a bill for €68,000. That is not an answer. We need an answer now.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir. I note the Senator's comments in relation to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. We have three Ministers working diligently in the Department and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has been deeply committed to trying to resolve these issues. I respect the point the Senator made and, critically, respect the work she has been doing on behalf of the residents on what has been a traumatic and difficult situation for them. Both I and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, fully acknowledge the difficulties that homeowners and residents of many apartments and duplexes are facing and the stress that is caused when defects arise in relation to their buildings.
As previously stated in this House, the report of the working group the Minister established to examine defects in housing was published at the end of July. The group's terms of reference were focused on fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects in purpose-build apartments, buildings and duplexes constructed between 1991 and 2013.
The content of this report confirmed what we already know. There is a significant and widespread issue with defects in a large number of apartments and duplexes that were built in that time period. Indeed, the working group estimates that between 62,500 and 100,000 apartments or duplexes may be affected by one or more fire safety, structural safety and water ingress defects with a potential total remediation cost of between €1.56 billion and €2.5 billion.
Following consideration of the working group's report, on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, I will now update this House on the steps being taken to develop a plan to address the situation. First, on 27 September, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, brought a memorandum to Government to inform it of the content of the report and the next steps he would be taking. The Minister has committed to reverting to Government at the end of this year with specific proposals. Second, an interdepartmental and agency group has been established to consider the recommendations contained in the working group's report and to elaborate on options for the potential sources of financial support and potential channels of deployment contained in the report. This interdepartmental and agency group has been asked to revert with proposed delivery mechanisms for the deployment of funding and to develop an options paper which will assist the Minister with developing proposals to present to Government before the end of the year. Third, the Department is in the process of establishing an advisory group to develop a code of practice in the context of the Fire Services Act to provide guidance to building professionals, local authority building control services and local authority fire services. Fourth, the Department is engaging with the Housing Agency for the provision of advice in relation to implementation of the recommendations of the working group's report.
As is evident from the detail I have presented to the House, a considerable amount of work is being undertaken and reflects the urgency that the Government believes is necessary to address this issue for affected homeowners. However, as recognised by the working group in its report, given that the overall potential scale and estimated cost of fixing the problem is so considerable it may take many years to address all buildings affected and resources and works will, therefore, need to be prioritised. In this regard, it would not be appropriate for those in charge of affected buildings to delay the undertaking of any remediation work that is considered necessary from a life-safety point of view.
I acknowledge the points the Senator made in relation to the families. We absolutely acknowledge the distress and trauma that this has caused them. The Government is making every effort to bring this to a successful resolution with those recommendations at the end of this year.
I thank the Minister of State. I know all three Ministers are working hard. I do not doubt that but I hear words such as "they are developing a plan", "will look at an options paper for Government" and "will have an advisory group on regulations". I hear the language of long-time delay. That is a delay with real-life consequences for the people who are living in these homes.
I also heard the Minister of State say that delaying on works is not appropriate. The problem is there is not any money to fund the works. In fact, many of the owner management companies are trading insolvent. They are probably trading contrary to company law because they do not have the money. They do not have sinking funds.
There needs to be compensation retrospectively. I know one management company that is deeply in debt and not all of the people living there are paying, have paid or have the wherewithal. The owner management companies cannot get the finance to fund these works and the people living in the apartments do not always have the wherewithal to pay for the works upfront. The doing of the works is not down to anybody not wanting to progress and make sure they are safe. They physically cannot do it because they cannot get the finance. Delay cannot continue.
I appreciate that. Not to misunderstand that this delay is in any sense deliberate-----
I accept that.
It is complex, as the Senator will be aware. It is important that we get this right. These are a complex set of issues that have arisen as a result of it. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, wants to ensure the set of recommendations that come forward from the interdepartmental and agency working group will assist him in making the correct decisions to move this forward in as quickly a timeframe as possible.
Certainly, in the Dáil and in here, other options were presented around interim solutions. I am not sure what the report will put forward. The Senator may rest assured, and give assurance to the residents' groups, that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is committed to resolving this in an equitable and a fair manner, noting that these are issues for affected homeowners who find themselves in this situation through no fault of their own. We are working to ensure that we try to resolve this in as fair a manner as possible.
School Transport
I welcome our guests in the Public Gallery. I am not sure which school they are from but we will find out and mention it on the record. They are very welcome. We are pleased to have them here to see the engagement in the Seanad.
The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, is welcome back to the Chamber.
The Minister of State is very welcome. I raised the issue of the remote area grant last September when the Minister, Deputy Foley, was in the Chamber. The grant is available, although many people may not know about it, to people who live more than a certain distances from their local school. I asked for an increase in the payment rate on the grant. The cost of fuel has gone up. The current daily rate is €1.30 for children living between 3.2 km and 4.7 km from the school and for those living 9.7 km from the school, the rate is €5.10 per day. Has there been progress on the increasing of these daily rates? This would take a bit of pressure off parents. The grant is paid annually. Is there any way it could be paid each term? In light of the cost-of-living crisis, is there any way these applications could be submitted after each of the three school terms? That might also alleviate pressure on parents somewhat.
Now, however, possibly as a result of my advertising the grant, I have been hearing from people who are applying for it but finding it almost impossible to get. It is important to note that an application for school transport must be made before a remote area grant may be considered. Sign-up on the Bus Éireann website for school transport is not user-friendly at all. The web page where one applies for school transport has no sign-up button but, rather, just a wall of text and, hidden in the middle of that, there is a line stating that one has to make an account to apply. Why make it so difficult? There should just be a form there or a big button. Bus Éireann should change this immediately. Bus Éireann operates the school transport scheme on behalf of the Department. No one can reach the company or the section of the Department that is responsible for administering the scheme. I looked into it online yesterday. It is not clear how or where to apply. One would be forgiven for thinking the Department does not want anyone availing of this grant and is hiding it away.
How many children are in receipt of the grant? How many applications are made, granted and refused each year? Can we get some transparency around this? Parents across the country are reporting that they do not know where to start applying. They cannot find the form and they have been given the runaround. Is the Department running the scheme or not? I hope I can get clarity from the Minister of State with regard to the administration of the grant and how it will be improved.
As regards the school transport scheme, it has been disappointing this year and particularly challenging in light of the increased numbers seeking school transport. In the past month, 30 Ukrainian children arrived in Stamullen and Gormanston. I cannot find a school for them. When I find them a school, I will need to find school transport for them. Children who are currently in the school in Gormanston cannot get school transport. There are challenges there. School transport is an issue. Certainly in the case of children who have just come here from Ukraine, it is important that we are able to facilitate them.
I am particularly interested in hearing from the Minster of State in respect of the remote area grant.
I thank the Senator for raising this matter. Before I address the specific issue raised, I will provide an outline of the extent of the school transport service. The school transport scheme is a significant operation, managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the previous school year, 121,400 children, including 15,500 with special educational needs, were transported daily to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. The cost of the scheme in 2021 was €289 million. The school transport scheme is an important service for families and children. The purpose of the scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school.
In July 2022, the Government announced funding for the waiving of school transport scheme fees for the 2022-23 school year as part of a wider package of cost-of-living measures. School transport ticket registration for the 2022-23 school year closed on 29 July, by which time almost 130,000 applications had been received for mainstream school transport. This figure includes 44,299 new applications, as well as rollovers from the previous school year. Already, more than 127,800 tickets have been issued for the 2022-23 school year. At the start of the previous school year, there were approximately 103,600 children carried on mainstream school transport services, so already 24,000 additional places have been created.
The normal eligibility criteria of the scheme still apply and tickets are allocated in line with these criteria. Pupils at primary level are eligible where they live no less than 3.2 km from and are attending their nearest primary school. At post-primary level, students who live no less than 4.8 km from and are attending their nearest post-primary school are deemed eligible. Any pupils who do not meet these criteria are deemed not eligible and are otherwise known as concessionary applicants. They are allocated a ticket based on the availability of a seat when all eligible children have been catered for. In line with normal practice, all eligible children who completed the application and ticket registration process in time for this school year will be accommodated on school transport services where such services are in operation.
As part of the budgetary process, additional funding has been approved for the scheme which will allow officials in the Department, in consultation with Bus Éireann, to consider and evaluate where temporary additional capacity may be available. The initial focus will be on families who applied on time and previously held concessionary tickets. However, it is important to stress that this is subject to capacity considerations. Constraints in sourcing vehicles and drivers in certain areas of the country may mean that it may take a number of weeks to explore solutions for additional capacity.
The specific issues raised by the Senator relate to remote area grants where school transport is not available. Families who wish to avail of school transport and have their eligibility status assessed should apply online before the closing date to Bus Éireann. Bus Éireann, which operates the school transport scheme on behalf of the Department, will then contact all applicants regarding their eligibility for school transport. The families must complete the application process before the closing date. Where there is no transport service available for eligible children, Bus Éireann will forward the applicants' details to the Department and officials from the school transport section will contact families directly regarding the remote area grant. It is important to note that an application for school transport must be made before any grant can be considered for an eligible student. Grants are based on distance from home to school and range between €1.30 per day and the maximum daily allowance payable of €5.10 per family.
As the Senator may be aware, the Department has commenced a review of the school transport scheme. The review is being conducted with a view to examining the current scheme, its broader effectiveness and sustainability and to ensure it serves students and their families adequately. I spoke to an official in the Department this morning. She hopes the review will be concluded by the end of the year and made it clear that the allocations and per day rates are part of the review. They are under consideration at the moment.
I thank the Minister of State. My question was really about the remote area grant. The response the Minister of State was provided by the school transport section spent three minutes on the school transport scheme but my question was really about the remote area grant. He told me about the 121,000 people who have got school transport. There are 130,000 applications, so, therefore there are 9,000 applicants who have not received it. Have those 9,000 people been sent a remote area grant scheme application form so that they might be able to avail of the grant? It is not user-friendly. Even though people have applied for the school transport scheme, it is not user-friendly to let them know that if they did not get it, they can apply for the remote area grant. If the Department could update the school transport section and the relevant website, that would be most helpful to parents.
To clarify, 24,000 additional places have been created this year. I will take the issues raised by the Senator in respect of the website back to the Department. I raised with the official today the visibility of the application process for the remote area grant, so that is now on the radar, but I will raise it with the Minister as well. The Senator's suggestion in respect of staging the payment over a couple of allocations during the year sounds like a good one as well and I will take it back to the Minister.
Renewable Energy Generation
I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, for taking this Commencement matter. I am sure we will all agree that the issue of our time is the energy transition necessary to balance climate change, sea level rise and the pace of change required to reach net zero by 2050. For political leaders who are continuing to legislate for these changes, we must maintain the support of the people at every stage and show them that this transition will mean jobs and opportunities with green tech, the green economy and so on. Direct air capture is an example of this.
Everything that has happened in Ukraine this year has shown us how harsh our world is and it has revealed many of our energy vulnerabilities. Our geographical position on the periphery of Europe and our wind resources mean that we can actually deliver where the European power market is failing. Europe is now a price taker for hydrocarbon fuels. It depends on parties outside the Union for energy security and that is going to remain the same for the foreseeable future. As we migrate to carbon neutrality, the future means CO2 will become the next globally traded commodity. We are ploughing into a future where this new commodity will significantly influence the price of our livestock, gasoline, transportation and electricity networks. This commodity is already included in the operating expenses of nearly all European businesses. The relative price of CO2 and its disposal could give nation states and their corporations a competitive age.
Europe, including Ireland, is lagging behind its main trading partners, which are the USA, the UK and Norway, in terms of the regulatory regimes to support industries that can benefit from carbon offsets. For example, the USA actively supports carbon capture and storage, direct air capture and carbon neutral fuels. These technologies are energy intensive. They need innovation and technology improvements and political buy-in to scale and reduce costs. These technologies could also allow Europe to control its carbon refining capacity. Carbon removal technology needs support through regulation and incentives to enable early investment. In the same way that it allowed our wind and solar energy to grow and reach a stage where Government support is no longer needed, carbon management could be one of the keys to securing our future and a much greener and more sustainable way of life.
I am here to ask what are our plans to capture this opportunity in Ireland, what is needed and what we need to do. I have three key asks, and I would be very interested to have the views of the Minister of State and thus the views of the Government. First, the only way to compensate for the use of fossil fuel is permanent disposal of CO2. Do we have an entire certification process that recognises and considers life-cycle analysis and permanent removal of CO2 technologies? Do we realise that not all CO2 is equal and that the only way to compensate for fossil fuel use is the permanent disposal of CO2?
Second, do we support first-of-a-kind facilities and technologies? Investors need certainty, scalability, administrative ease, distribution of costs and public acceptance to attractive investment. Business models must encourage investors to take on the risk of first-of-a-kind carbon removal technologies. Are there plans within Government for carbon price subsidies, such as the 45Q incentive in the United States, that create financeable revenue streams and derisk investor sentiment? That critical area requires integration into European Union and Irish climate policies.
Third, what is our policy for integrating carbon removal into compliance markets? Are carbon credits from carbon removal technologies able to operate competitively in Europe's regulatory and voluntary carbon markets today? For example, as it currently stands, the EU emissions trading scheme, ETS, does not incentivise greenhouse gas removal at all. Should the Government go to the European Union and say we should be looking at the ETS as an appropriate place for new and innovative technologies to trade their carbon credits?
I thank the Senator for the opportunity to discuss this question on the role of direct air capture, DAC. Direct air capture of CO2 involves a system where air from the atmospheres flows over an absorbent material and selectively removes the CO2. The CO2 is then released in a concentrated stream for disposal or for reuse. The absorbent material is regenerated and the CO2-depleted air is returned to the atmosphere. DAC differs from carbon capture and storage, which seeks to capture CO2 from point sources such as flue gases from large industrial processes, and this is followed by transportation by pipeline and then injection into geologically secure storage.
DAC is still in its infancy and it is currently categorised as having a technology readiness level of six on a scale of one to nine, meaning it is still in the prototype phase and not yet ready for full commercial deployment. According to the International Energy Agency, there are 18 DAC plants operating worldwide and they are capturing almost .01 megatons of CO2 per year. A 1 megaton of CO2 per year capture plant is in advanced development in the United States. DAC plants are currently very expensive and they are energy intensive. A significant factor in their deployment will be a plentiful economic supply of renewable energy. Pioneering countries in DAC development are those with such resources and these will include countries like Iceland, which has abundant geothermal and hydro sources.
The next climate action plan, the climate action plan 2023, is currently under development. It will provide an update on the progress being made in meeting Ireland's national climate objectives and it will seek to identify any challenges or obstacles in regard to this progress. This plan will build on the actions from the 2021 climate action plan, such as commitments to increasing the proportion of renewable electricity, including increased targets for offshore wind energy, and to enable modal shifts, such as extra walking, cycling and public transport journeys per day by 2030 and supporting the take-up of electric vehicles to reach almost 1 million vehicles by 2030.
It will increase our supply of skills and resource capacity to make retrofitting more affordable through the national retrofit plan. It will provide for faster uptake of carbon neutral heating and increased electrification of high-temperature heating in our enterprise sector, as well as the phasing out of high-level warming potential F-gases. It will reduce our emissions within the agriculture sector, while supporting world-class food production through an innovation- and science-based approach. This includes a reduction in chemical nitrogen and more targeted use of fertiliser, while maintaining our position as a global leader in grass growth through multispecies swards.
All these measures and more will be required by Ireland as it seeks to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030, relative to 2018 levels, and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Action 124 in the Climate Action Plan 2021 provides for the development of carbon capture and storage, CCS, as opposed to DAC by 2030. Its development is also challenging but it could remove further emissions from the system. We will therefore develop a policy framework and roadmap for the provision of CCS. In its current configuration, DAC does not feature as an option in the plan but, in due course, as we progress in reducing our emissions, increasing our supply of renewables, and DAC becomes cost competitive and technologically more advanced, it will become an option for inclusion.
That is excellent. The whole point I am bringing forward is to get the Government thinking about this technology. I am pleased to see it is willing to do that. The Minister of State has come to the House to say it is not accessible as of today but, as we progress along our climate action targets for the rest of the decade and beyond, it will become more feasible. It is very important, similar to our hydrogen strategy, that the Government starts planning for it now so that, when it becomes more financially viable, we can go for it. We should do the work now so that, when it becomes viable, we will have a plan in place and we will just have to roll it out. It can become one of the many tools the Government uses to reach our 2030 and 2050 targets. I am very pleased to hear the Government is certainly open to examining it. That is very useful. As I said, it has an important role to play. We see what is being done in the USA and the United Kingdom. It could be a very useful weapon in our arsenal to hit our targets in 2030. I am very pleased by the Minister of State's response. I thank him for that.
There are three key responses to the mitigation of climate change. There is the switch to renewable energies, such as wind power and solar power, to replace fossil fuels. We then have energy efficiency, for example, retrofitting homes and, finally, measures that remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. Those things all have different prices per tonne that we line up, but we do not just go with the one measure that has the best answer. We have to have an array of things. It is like a balanced diet. We need an approach with all those different measures taking place. On price, even if it is very expensive per tonne to use one of these technologies, we expect that will change over time. There will a requirement for the removal of CO2. We believe renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, such as insulation, will not be enough on their own. There are currently many technologies, which are not deployed or are cost prohibitive, that are very likely to be there. I visited a geothermal energy research centre in Technological University Dublin yesterday. That technology will also be a big part of the future for Ireland. We will not write off any of these technologies because they are too expensive right now. We will keep them under review. I expect there will be room for CCS and DAC in the future.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 11.24 a.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 12.02 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 11.24 a.m. and resumed at 12.02 p.m.