Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As already outlined, we need these projects to go ahead as soon as possible in light of the debt and financial issues associated with their not proceeding in a timely manner. One of the issues I have is that there is an enabling grant of up to €180,000 per project through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. No community project of which I am aware is in receipt of that enabling grant. Therefore, we have situation where they were effectively promised something under a two-year timeline, and, through no fault of their own, ESB Networks is not fulfilling its end of the bargain. However, it is the community energy projects that are facing financial difficulty. When we talk about future schemes, the Minister of State mentioned that people and these community projects will know in advance. There was knowledge in advance of how the project would work, and they invested on the basis of the terms and conditions of RESS 1. We cannot talk about future schemes for these projects because those involved have already invested heavily. The projects that were successful under RESS 2 are now actively being chased for money by ESB Networks to pay their grid connections. They will go into debt immediately once they start paying that, as they are doing.

With respect, I would like a response on these two projects and on those that were successful under RESS 2 in order that I might see what the workaround is for those projects rather than speaking about future projects. Conversations are happening right now among community energy providers in the context of whether they going to sign up and pay over money to ESB Networks. If they do not know that the project is finally going to get the connection, why would they hand over the money? This is an urgent issue. We cannot wait any longer. The deadline is 31 December. I ask the Minister of State to go back to the Minister and ask for something satisfactory regarding to these projects.