Laois councillor wants free solar panels given to every Irish home

A Laois councillor wants free solar panels given to every house in Ireland, to avoid a €32 billion fine on Ireland for missing carbon reduction targets.

Former Fine Gael, now Independent Cllr Aisling Moran who represents the Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal District, made her suggestion at the October meeting of Laois County Council. 

"It's great we're doing fantastic work on council houses upgrading them from an E rating to an A or B rating. But at the end of the day, when people living in private houses cannot afford to do retrofits and get solar panels, we're still going to be fined.

"We'll still face a fine of €26 billion at the end of all this money we're spending. So spend the money now. There's 2.1 million houses in Ireland. If we were to give each of them €12,000 or €13,000 to put in solar panels or anything like that, we'd hit our targets, and there wouldn't be any fines. 

"We'll spend a load of money, not hit the targets and be fined €26m and still have to go back at the end and try and get everybody upgraded. It's a conversation that really needs to be had with Government and really needs to be done," she said.

Cllr Moran also wants Data Centres to cough up and compensate for all the electricity and water they take up.

"Water, electricity, all of that, we didn't really have huge issues until data centres came into Ireland. They reckon now that data centres in the next few years will use the equivalent of 20 million homes. Ten times the amount of homes that we have. When you're putting in a data centre, that the extra supply of electricity needed to run it, and water and all the services, should be made put in by the centre, and not by the council.

"If they want to go and spend billions building centres all over the place, put the services in there. It shouldn't be up to the councils to do it. At the end of the day our electricity prices go up. Our water prices go up. And it's the average joe soap that's paying the bills and not the guys in the big data centre," Cllr Moran said.

Read also: 'Beggers belief' - new Laois houses for disabled have baths instead of wetrooms 

A joint report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council has warned that Ireland could have to pay between €8 billion and €26 billion if it fails to meet its emissions reduction target by 2030. It will have to spend the money purchasing carbon credits from other countries.

Ireland's 2030 target under the EU's Effort Sharing Regulations (ESR) was to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 42% from 2018 levels. However it is predicted to achieve only a 10% reduction, according to the EPA.