Ireland on track to procure significant emergency electricity supplies, Cabinet told

Ireland is on track to procure significant emergency electricity supplies by this winter, the Cabinet was told on Tuesday.

Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman, on behalf of Minister for Environment Eamon Ryan, received Government approval to publish new emergency electricity generation legislation and also to request early signature of the Bill by the President.

The Government has signalled that it needs to procure a large amount of temporary emergency generation capacity in order to manage the security of supply risk for the year ahead.

The Cabinet was told the timeframe for the delivery of the additional capacity is on track for the end of this year, but that further legislative change is needed so that the plants can get industrial emissions licences from the Environmental Protection Agency in order to operate.

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Separately, employers could be forced to reveal approximate salaries for advertised jobs, and they could also banned from asking a potential employee’s previous salary, under plans discussed by Ministers.

Mr O’Gorman received Government approval not to oppose the Employment Equality (Pay Transparency) Private Members Bill, which is a Sinn Féin Bill scheduled to be discussed in the Dáil on Thursday. The legislation seeks to introduce an obligation on employers to publish the approximate salary for a job that is advertised.

Mr O’Gorman told Cabinet that the issue of pay transparency is currently being addressed by a proposed EU directive which would require that employers indicate the initial pay level or range for a specific job. The directive would also ban employers requesting the pay history of prospective employees.

New national science forum

Meanwhile, Minister for Higher Education and Justice Simon Harris brought plans to Cabinet to set up a new national science forum as well as a Government science advisor. The forum will be made up of 12 experts with the membership refreshing every three years. It would be chaired by a newly appointed Government science advisor.

The role of the advisor would be a term-limited appointment initially for three years, with a possible extension by two years, offered on a three-day part-time basis. Mr Harris said he would consider how best to proceed with the appointments and revert to Cabinet.

ECB surveillance mission

Meanwhile, Minister for Finance Michael McGrath updated the Cabinet on an upcoming surveillance mission by the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) next week. Ireland is subject to this post-programme surveillance until at least 75 per cent of the financial assistance received is repaid, which means the programme will continue until 2031.

Ireland has fully repaid the programme loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and bilateral loans to Sweden, Denmark and the UK, and these lenders no longer participate in the programme reviews.