Energy and Fuel Costs: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Paraic Brady (FG), Agricultural Panel

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Unfortunately I am not left with a lot of time. I support the scrappage scheme. It is a great scheme. When people say that they do not know what is going to take over from oil, I will give an instance. A pellet burner in a house will take over from oil. It will do the exact same job as oil. For instance, it is more efficient and more carbon friendly. That is one instance that we should look at and maybe support more of that.
With regard to the roll-out of the rebate scheme to farmers, hauliers and contractors, I attended a meeting in Moate last Sunday where a huge number of farmers turned out. When they start a tractor, they cannot use anything else only green diesel. To produce food they have to use green diesel. There is no renewable. There is no way of charging a tractor. There is no other way. The one and only source farmers have is green diesel to produce food and to go to the field. I hope that the Government will understand that there has to be supports coming in the green diesel sector maybe where food production is involved. Where food production is involved, we certainly need to do something around the green diesel.
The carbon tax on home heating oil is certainly something we need to look at in the budget. I hope that we will do so. Regarding our power - and just give me one minute please as I am last to speak - and our power lines, when we talk about the TAMS grants and supporting farmers and one thing and another, when we go for the TAMS grant there is only a certain amount of solar panels we can get on. If people have a single phase low power line coming to a house, they would only be allowed to fit so many solar panels on that because the lines are not fit to take the excess that it produces. I hope that we see huge investment from the ESB going forward. If we intend to be serious about this, we have to get away from putting solar panels on land that is used for food production and put them back where we can put them such as on our sheds and on areas where farmers can produce electricity.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29