Government wants to 'do more' for small businesses by improving renewable energy grants

Climate minister Darragh O'Brien said he was working on improving grants for SMEs to help deal with soaring energy costs

Darragh O'Brien said there were now over 218,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads, with a “sizable increase in registration” in the first three months of the year.

The Government is considering how to improve renewable energy grants for small businesses to deal with elevated costs, the climate minister has said.

Darragh O’Brien said the Government wanted to find “new ideas” and better ways to use resources to reduce people’s energy costs.

In particular, Mr O’Brien said he was working on improving grants for SMEs, adding there were 4,000 grants for businesses issued last year.

“I think we need to do more than that,” Mr O’Brien said.

He said the Government had introduced new supports for people last month, adding there was also an increase to the grant payments for heat pumps.

Mr O’Brien said there were now over 218,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads, with a “sizable increase in registration” in the first three months of the year.

“Electrifying our country, our society, reducing our dependence on fossil [fuels] as well. It’s good for climate, it’s good for people’s pockets,” Mr O’Brien said.

He was speaking after Tánaiste Simon Harris said there would be new targeted grants and accessible financing to assist people to upgrade their homes or their heating systems.

Mr Harris said options would be worked on by officials within his department through the Tax Strategy Group. He also called for further investment in the electricity grid to reduce maintenance charges.

Mr O’Brien said he was interested in speaking to Mr Harris to hear his ideas.

“Always looking to do more where we can, because this protects people against price increases as well and actually ensures that we have more energy efficient homes in the country too,” Mr O’Brien said.

Labour’s climate spokesperson Ciarán Ahern said: “The key thing here is the Government needs to reduce energy costs and they need to do it in a way that isn’t just entirely subsidising in the short term the profits of these huge fossil fuel corporations.

Investing in heat pumps is a good idea because they’re incredibly expensive things.

Mr Ahern said it was good the Government had changed its thinking, saying it had not learned lessons stemming from the Ukraine war.

He said the Government needed to “more urgently” pivot towards using renewable energy sources, adding Irish electricity prices were higher than other countries because of our overreliance on natural gas.

The Labour TD said, however, this would be a longer-term approach, as it would not be possible to install heat pumps across the country “overnight”.

Sinn Féin’s climate spokesperson Pa Daly said Mr Harris’s comments were an acknowledgement the Government’s approach was “not working”.

He said further one-off supports would not provide the “radical overhaul” and was “damage limitation” after the fuel protests.

“Rather than temporary solutions, ordinary households need enhanced supports on an ongoing basis,” he said.

He added many people could access climate supports due to “high up-front costs”.

Mr Daly reiterated the Sinn Féin position the Government needed to introduce an “emergency mini budget” to assist households.

Mr Harris has previously ruled out any such intervention.