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Sinn Féin motion to call for eviction ban to be extended to January 2024

Speaking to reporters in New York last night, Mary Lou McDonald said her party will move the motion today.

LAST UPDATE | 14 Mar 2023

SINN FEÍN IS submitting a Dáil motion calling for the eviction ban to be extended until January 2024.

The chamber is not sitting today but will reconvene next week after the St Patrick’s break. 

The opposition motion will put renewed pressure on the Government, forcing a vote on the issue the day after the Dáil debates the eviction ban next Tuesday.

The motion states that Ireland “remains in the midst of a housing emergency” and that by choosing to end the eviction ban on 31 March, the government has “increased the stress and insecurity experienced by the 750,000 people, including working families, living in private rented accommodation”.

“The Minister for Housing has admitted that homelessness will increase once the current eviction ban ends… Emergency Homeless Accommodation is at breaking point. The Government has no contingency plan in place to deal with the increase in homeless presentations when the current ban on evictions ends,” the motion states. 

It is calling for the Government to extend the ban and the tenant in situ scheme for both social and affordable cost rental tenants.

It is also calling for the use of emergency planning and procurement powers to target vacant and derelict buildings and new building technologies to increase the supply of social and affordable homes above the existing 2023 targets.

The motion also says the government must commence “the biggest social and affordable housing programme in the history of the State so that people can access secure, affordable housing to buy and rent”.

Speaking outside the Dáil this afternoon, Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said his party is urging all TDs, especially independents and government backbenchers “who we know support us on this issue” to vote with them.

There still is an opportunity in the two weeks of the Dáil sitting for the government to bring in their own legislation and extend this ban.

“It is patently clear that the government has no plan in place whatsoever to deal with what the Residential Tenancies Board are telling us are 3,000 eviction notices that will fall due in April, and that’s before we even start counting to those that will fold you in May, or June,” Ó Broin said.

“It’s not about playing politics. It’s about trying to reverse a government decision, and if – particularly – those independents who normally would support the government, and those government backbenchers who publicly have said on the record that they support what we’re calling for, if they support us, that will add additional pressure on government.”

A vote on the issue could spell trouble with all eyes on Government Green Party TDs Neasa Hourigan and Patrick Costello, who have been critical of the decision. 

Speaking to reporters in New York last night, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said her party “absolutely appreciate that the ban on evictions is not in and of itself the answer to our housing crisis”.

“We know that it can’t be a permanent feature, but we also know that it is just irresponsible of a Government to move ahead, to take away this protection from renters and from so many people who are in a very, very vulnerable position. So I think common decency has to prevail here,” she said. 

Her comments came after McDonald wrote to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar urging him to reverse his Government’s decision to lift the eviction ban.

She said she hoped to get a “positive response” from the Taoiseach, stating: “At the end of the day, it’s simply not acceptable.”

The decision to end the ban was taken by Cabinet last week, with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien defending the decision saying that it would further reduce the number of rental properties available.

Varadkar has admitted that the eviction ban is both an emotive and difficult issue and that the decision to end it was “hard to defend”.

Speaking in New York yesterday evening, McDonald said it is “very clear” that the Government has not put in place any mitigating measures or any plan to prevent thousand of people becoming homeless.

‘Where will families go?’

The Government cannot answer the “very simple straightforward question of where do these families go when faced with a notice to quit, and eviction, and homelessness? Where are these families to go?” she said. 

“I want the Government to do the responsible and decent thing and not to throw families, thousands of them to the wolves,” said the Sinn Féin president.

She repeated that a no fault eviction ban is not the in and of itself the answer to the housing crisis. 

“That’s not the point we’re making,” she said.

“When the Government has failed to deliver on housing, failed to create any kind of mitigation or protection, “it’s just wrong in those circumstances to end the eviction ban”, she said. 

McDonald added: 

In an emergency situation like this, society should be seeing an emergency response. They should see a government that is literally pulling out all of the stops.

“So for me, the heart of this problem is that you have a government that says on the one hand, we have a crisis in housing, but who is not prepared to go into full emergency crisis mode to sort this out. And that’s what it’s going to take,” said the Sinn Féin leader. 

The key focus now has to be on emergency accommodation, she said. 

Reacting to the motion today, Tánaiste Micheál Martin told reporters in New York it was a dishonest move, stating that the date January 2024 really means Christmas time this year. 

“This is days after Christmas Day, Sinn Féin are saying we should lift the ban. How credible is that? Does Sinn Féin really think that would happen? Of course it would not happen.

“The advice to government was that if you were minded to keep the eviction ban, you should keep it for two years. And then that would necessitate a very significant narrative around the justification for that in terms of any potential legal challenges, but also more critically, what damage would it do to the long term sustainability of the rental market itself?

“In other words, would that disincentivise anyone from going into the rental market or indeed would ultimately expedite people leaving the market – that was the hard decision we had to make,” he said.

He added: “We didn’t want to make the situation worse, because we do need more properties into the market to be available for people to rent. That’s the core rationale.”

Martin accused Sinn Féin of “playing politics”, calling it “cynical”. The Tánaiste said he criticised the party’s suggestion about extending the ban last week pointing out that they were intending to lift the ban days after Christmas Day.

“They now put in a date of January 24. I mean to me, that’s a very cynical and dishonest maneuver by Sinn Féin and it just illustrates the degree to which they’re playing politics with a very serious issue” he added. 

It is critical now that the in-situ scheme is applied rigorously, he said. Directions have now issued to local authorities in that respect, said Martin.

Outside the Dáil this afternoon, Ó Broin said he was asking Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin: “What are you saying to the families?

What are you saying to the single people, the couples, the parents with children and the pensioners who will have no place to go come 1 April?

“What is your advice to them? What are your directions to them? What is the support that you’re providing for them in those days and weeks in April, May and June, because so far, I haven’t heard anything, either from government, but particularly from the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste.

“In the absence of any realistic support for families who are facing homelessness, or who are just simply facing losing their home, moving in with family and friends, overholding etc, if there is no advice and support from government come April, then the ban on evictions needs to be extended.”

Emergency accommodation

McDonald accused the Government of squandering the last six months when the eviction ban was in place, stating that not enough was done to ramp up housing. 

“If you’re going to end an eviction, at a minimum you have to ensure that you have sufficient capacity in your emergency accommodation. That’s that’s your first thing.

“What can be achieved in six or seven months? I think a lot can be achieved, if you have a Government that is focused, determined and accepts that we what we are living through is a crisis and an emergency,” she said. 

When asked about homeowners who are returning home to Ireland from abroad, who cannot move back into their own homes due to the eviction ban – a point that the Taoiseach has raised in recent weeks – McDonald said her party put down an amendment to deal with that very issue. 

“The Government did not support that amendment,” she said, stating it was voted against.

“I think that would be a perfectly reasonable exemption,” added McDonald.

“The fact is that we are at capacity, there is simply no room for people should they fall homeless,” she said. 

Sinn Féin’s motion sets out measures in terms of the use of vacant and derelict buildings, as well as speeding up the system in terms of the procurement and delivery of housing.

‘No real preparation’

Fianna Fáíl TD Paul McAuliffe last night told RTÉ’s Upfront with Katie Hannon that the government decided to not “delay the inevitable” and to put in place “real solutions”.

He described the “tenants in-situ” as a “good example of a permanent solution”, though he acknowledged it “isn’t applicable in every case and won’t protect everybody”.

The tenant-in-situ programme allows Local Authorities to purchase homes where a tenant who is in receipt of Housing Assistance Payments or the Rental Accommodation Scheme has been issued with a notice of termination.

However, Ó Broin described the lifting of the eviction ban as a “one of the decisions that this government has made that I don’t understand”.

While he acknowledged that a ban on evictions isn’t the solution, he told last night’s programme that the government didn’t use the time provided to “put in place additional solutions”.

Meanwhile, Green TD Neasa Hourigan accused the coalition leaders, including her own party leader Eamon Ryan, of lifting the ban “with no real preparation”.

She said she was “shocked to see it [the eviction ban] removed with so little preparation”.

Hourigan added that “kids will moved out of their schools because there is nowhere to stay in their communities”.  

Housing Market Monitor

The Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) released its latest Housing Market Monitor for quarter four of last year and said that “robust housing supply and mortgage demand will support the housing market in 2023”.

However, the report noted that “downside risks remain to both supply of homes and demand for mortgages due to cost pressures associated with building costs and interest rate increases”.

Brian Hayes, chief executive of the BPFI said “housing supply recovered significantly in 2022, with close to 30,000 house completions during the year”.

That’s a 45% increase on 2021 and he anticipates that close to 27,000 housing units will be delivered this year.

2,108 housing units commenced in January of this year, the highest figure in any January since 2008.

Hayes also noted that first-time buyer mortgage demand remains very strong, with a 36% increase in Help-to-Buy applications when compared to 2021. 

- Reporting from Christina Finn in New York, Diarmuid Pepper and Jane Moore

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    Mute Gravel Pitt
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:23 AM

    We should build one in Cork – covering the whole county….

    133
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    Mute Big Mickey
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    Feb 11th 2015, 2:43 PM

    Breasts.

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:24 PM

    Could cover cork, would be an improvement

    5
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    Mute Winston Teardrops
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    Feb 11th 2015, 11:49 AM

    “Firing” homes with “juice”. Apple are so street.

    59
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    Mute Eoin Fleming
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:37 AM

    Wouldn’t it better if they developed more power for their iPhone batteries?

    58
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    Mute GO GREEN
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    Feb 11th 2015, 11:23 AM

    This is good news and hopefullly more big rich companies will follow their example. Saw a progamme on tv last night about wind turbines in countries like Germany where locals are given a share in the wind farms unlike in Ireland where the locals are barely consulted let alone given a share.

    46
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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 12:01 PM

    Resistance to wind power in Germany is snowballing. And it needs to be noted that this resistance is grass roots and sustained almost entirely by volunteers and privately donated time and effort.

    In the latest wind energy critical site http://www.vernunftkraft.de here has a report summarizing the performance of Germany’s wind turbines in 2014. Again the result is so ugly that the wind industry does not want anyone to see it.
    Vernunftkraft.de writes in response to the wind industry’s recent boastings of yet another successful “record” year:

    Rolf Schuster finalized the evaluation of the actual wind energy feed-in data in order to counter the propaganda with honest figures.

    The most important result: 14.8 percent.

    14
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    Mute brian magee
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    Feb 11th 2015, 2:56 PM

    The program was very one sided. They didn’t mention the reason we use peat is for energy security, it’s the only fuel we have in the country that we can be self sufficient on. Yesterday we only had 12 MW of wind that’s less than 1% of our demand.

    How do you think the other 99% came from. Wind isn’t as green as it appears and doesn’t reduce energy costs

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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 5:57 PM

    Second time today you trot out you anti green energy guff. You post a link that to a hoax story about windmills that you don’t deny two weeks ago, Then you decry solar power because a 32 year old obsolete technology solar array was decommissioned in the US as evidence that modern solar power is useless. Now you are here trying to convince us that one of the smartest and richest tech company on earth have got it wrong. If I remember you are also an ardent fan of nuclear….Agenda?Lobby much?

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 6:05 PM

    Make your mind up about which comment you are having trouble with or is the subject all too much for you?

    2
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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 6:17 PM

    Gosh, Apple are about to spend even more than Solyndra, the bankrupted Northern California solar-panel maker that burned through $535 million in federal guaranteed loans just to prove than solar Pv is a flop. But then roughly 80% of the Department of Energy’s $20.5 billion in loans granted “went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers–individualswho were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, orlarge donors to the Democratic Party.”
    In 2008, Mr. Obama promised his policies would create 5 million “green collar” jobs but failed , will Apple have the same success ?

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 6:23 PM

    We should copy Germany and plaster the place with 27000 wind towers. The low capacity factor of German wind turbines makes wind electricity expensive. Driven by increased costs from renewables, household electricity rates almost doubled from 13.9 eurocents per kilowatt-hour to 26.0 eurocents per kilowatt-hour from 2000 to 2013. Today, Germany has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, more than triple U.S. electricity prices. The story is even worse 2 years on

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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:59 PM

    My mind is made up Mort but I have a day job and don’t have time to spend my day blogging here pretending to be an ordinary Joe, so I don’t always have the time to counter your one man propaganda machine.
    Let’s see, any article on the environment and you are poo-pooing renewables and see nothing of any merit in them, even when Apple endorses solar you try to deflect by pointing to some article about Germany.Now when it is nuclear you see no wrong and even Fukuyama can be reasonably explained away, as if it could. Facts and figures always to hand. Any dissent and you cry luddite.

    All Muslins are bad. All Muslims. All Israelis are good. All. Anyone who questions this is a,- what’s that stock phrase you use? Oh yes, ‘Islamofacist apparatchik’. In other word, someone who disagree with you.
    You were a cheer leader when Ghaddaffi was overthrown & Libya descended into chaos. When people try to escape this hell by getting to Italy, there you are on the shore shouting, go home you are not wanted.
    Now you have the neck to tell me I am muddled?

    For anyone in doubt, read Uncle Mort’s exchanges with Charlie Carlisle. Caught right out there Mort. http://www.thejournal.ie/athea-wind-farm-1915304-Feb2015/#comments

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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 8:20 PM

    Germany may have higher electricity price than the US but the don’t have the US reputation of being one of the world’s dirties economy per capita either. Germany is twenty years ahead in that sense. But the fossil fuel and nuclear industry will try everything to keep it down. No trick too sneaky.
    http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=340&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1679&cHash=a6ffbf36a98ab3ba82069d2486ebd7ae

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    Mute Stephen
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:24 AM

    So there not really gonna blow €850M, had it been a wind farm they were building different story, just saying.

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    Mute Tricia Golden
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    Feb 11th 2015, 1:26 PM

    Thank you!! My thought precisely! What a biased headline.

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    Mute Paul Roche
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    Feb 11th 2015, 4:14 PM

    €750 million is roughly $850 million.
    “The farm will cost $850 million to build and will provide enough juice to fire 60,000 homes.
    Despite the enormous cost Cook insists that the farm will be more than enough to power Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino and will save the tech giant money in the long run.”
    What’s not clear about the article?

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:25 PM

    What is wrong with solar panels ? Fail to understand your criticism

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:26 PM

    What the hell is biased about the headline ?

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    Mute Tricia Golden
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    Feb 12th 2015, 2:21 PM

    The headline originally said “Apply blow €750 million….” which implies they’re wasting the money. My point was related to that. There headline made it sound like investing in solar energy was a waste. They’ve since changed the headline.

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    Mute Kevin Higgins
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    Feb 11th 2015, 12:41 PM

    Blow? It’s not oil or booze it’s solar. INVEST is the word you dummies

    25
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    Mute Juninho
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:22 AM

    The Chinese marquee is notoriously tough to enter ;)

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    Mute Thomas O'Brien
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:42 PM

    Sugarcoated bullsh*t..

    There is nothing noble about what they are doing, they just want to enter the electricity market and cut costs to their own consumption, are they planning to give away the electricity they generate?

    What good have apple really done? If they wanted to make the world a better place why not start with their workforce, the only company I know of that has to install suicide prevention nets around their factory.. Provide your workers with a decent living wage! You can afford it! You are a $700billion company! Also stop ripping off the consumer with your iShite which is only made to last a couple of years…

    10
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    Mute David Fortune
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:52 PM

    You mean Foxconn? Who made the laptop/phone you’re commenting here on? It was probably made there too. Apple have been the only company that I’ve read about actually push for change in those places, doing checks on them and working to get them to a higher standard. The media obsession with Apple means only Apple gets mentioned when something bad happens at Foxconn, even though your laptop, phone, games consoles, tablet, e-reader, smart watch, all probably made there.

    And regarding suicide levels, apparently they’re in line with the average rates in China, there’s just so many people working for Foxconn it happens a lot. Not great that ANYONE feels the need to take their own life, but nothing seems to point to Foxconn leading to any more than anywhere else in China.

    Why would they give away the energy they’re generating? They’re reducing their dependence on fossil fuels, which is a good thing. I feel like Apple could provide every man, woman and child with free electricity and you’d complain that they’re doing the energy employees out of work.

    6
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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:58 PM

    No they want to harvest subsidies from poor people

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:30 PM

    Dumb, ill informed trolllike comment. Check your facts first before spouting such rubbish

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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:36 AM

    “and will provide enough to juice to fire 60,000 homes.” Balleaux. May I repeat “Not forgetting the scam of solar power which gets frequent mention by greenies here on the Journal. Hawaii and California would seem to be ideal for solar compared to rainy Ireland and look what happened to them.
    http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/4686/Hawaiirsquos-Future-Abandoned-Solar-Farms-Clutter-California-Desert.aspx

    8
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    Mute Uncle Mort
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    Feb 11th 2015, 10:54 AM

    At 9 p.m. on July 16 2014 total wind power output was a mere 0.334 gigawatts and the day’s last rays of sunlight were delivering only 0.103 gigawatts of power. That means the two sources of wind and solar combined were putting out only [(0.334 + 0.103)/65]100 = 0.7% of their rated capacity. That in turn means the remaining 99.3% had to come in large part from the conventional coal, nuclear and gas power plants.

    Germany’s installed wind/solar systems on average operate roughly at about 15% of their capacity.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 5:01 PM
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    Mute Ten Major
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    Feb 11th 2015, 8:09 PM

    As Charlie Carlisle said to you last Saturday.
    That’s the nature of wind energy. It’s budgeted for before the farm goes up (bear in mind that this tech isn’t exactly new).
    Think of it more like a company that has one emoployee and hires six contractors for the busy days.
    Check out the EirGrid dashboard to see how it’s actually quite economical, as when the wind blows we cut down on our natural gas consumption and imported electricity. If it’s blowing overnight, we even manage a few exports to the UK.
    http://www.eirgrid.com/media/All-Island_Wind_and_Fuel_Mix_Report_Summary_2013.pdf (2013 summary, as the 2014 summary has not yet been compiled)
    You’ll never get the same reliability or energy density with wind as with fossil fuels, however it isn’t intended to get that. It’s a supplemental source (and if it’s economical, then it’s probably quite productive).
    We need everything we can get if we’re going to continue to run our fridges and our computers and our 400 inch tvs and our endless street lighting and our washing machines and our tumble driers.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 8:48 PM

    the savings are tiny relative to the cost.

    the main problem now is that there is an energy bubble because nobody bothered to check whether wind could actually replace conventional plant which is driving industry out

    http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/01/energy-bub.html

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    Mute Ruth
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    Feb 11th 2015, 5:49 PM

    An apple a day keeps the end of the world at bay.

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    Mute Ciaran De Bhal
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:57 PM

    Hey FRANK. Numbers for ya to terrorise us with…

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    Mute Jake Race
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:37 PM

    That explains why they’re head hunting Tesla engineers.

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    Mute owen m
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    Feb 11th 2015, 3:57 PM

    Typical, spending millions to throw precious resources and fossil fuels down the drain, What a Waste, people in future will curse us for wasting these resources

    http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/01/wind-energy-wasteful-use-of-resources.html

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    Mute Flatpack Jack
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    Feb 11th 2015, 7:54 PM

    I wonder how much Co2 will be produced just manufacturing all those solar panels? It’ll be a long time before that solar farm balances it’s Co2 books alone!

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