2026-06-30

I move amendment No. 2: In page 7, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following: “ “emergency use only” has the meaning as defined by the N-1 infrastructure standard defined by EU Regulation 2017/1938 only. A Strategic Emergency Gas Reserve under this Act and all future Acts relating to its construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning cannot be used for management of day-to-day energy demand;”. What we want to do is provide a definition of "emergency use only" and insist on it. This is a simple-----

That is a different amendment.

I should have sai thatd we are dealing with amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 9 and 18.

Is it section 2 or amendment No. 2?

It is section 2, amendments Nos. 1 and 12.

No. We are dealing with amendment No. 2 to section 2. That is because the relevant Deputy was not here to move amendment No. 1.

Amendment No. 12 was grouped with amendment No. 1.

Yes, it was. We can come back to amendment No. 12 when we get to it. At the moment, we are on the grouping that includes amendment No. 2.

Tá brón orm, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

That is okay. The Minister is forgiven.

Should I move amendment No. 12 then?

No.

Will I continue on amendment No. 2?

Yes. Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 9 and 18 are related and may be discussed together.

As I said, this is a simple, but critical amendment. It is because "emergency use only" must and should be clearly defined in law and a strategic gas reserve such as the one proposed should be a measure of last resort and a limited, emergency tool rather than a permanent fossil fuel lock-in. Therefore, we hope that this amendment will put clear legal boundaries on what the reserve is, as defined by the EU's N-1 standard. That matters because, without these definitions, the emergency reserve risks becoming business-as-usual gas infrastructure. Ireland is already reliant on fossil fuels for 81% of its energy. This Bill cannot deepen that dependency. The amendment proposes that the reserve be a backstop and not a crutch. It cannot be used to address localised network constraints or routine increases in gas demand. It should not be for day-to-day use. It is for emergency use, as outlined when it was proposed initially, and the Bill must not be used to construct infrastructure for business-as-usual operations.

What we and the Minister need to try to do is bring a level of transparency to this debate and try to engender a level of trust. Trust has been broken between the public and the Government in this regard. When the Minister has talked about all the different elements of this facility, the key thing he mentioned is that it is to be a strategic, State-led, State-owned, State-run non-commercial facility to be used in limited circumstances. These amendments speak to those limited circumstances. It is important that the Bill be explicit regarding in what circumstances this facility can be utilised. That is why I and others tabled amendments. I will talk about it being a State-owned and State-led facility because that is another very important safeguard. I was surprised to see that is not discussed or mentioned in the Bill the Minister brought forward, despite the fact that in every discussion we have had in this Chamber and committees and any debate, including when the Minister has spoken about it on the radio, the key thing he says is that it will be a State-owned, State-led non-commercial facility. That is the key message he is trying to get across, yet the Bill does not even mention that. There is a major gap here and it brings about a question of trust and transparency and whether the public can really believe the intentions behind this facility. I tabled a number of amendments to the Bill, including one to deal with the fact the operation of the birds and habitats directive was essentially removed from the Bill. I put in an amendment that called for a review of alternatives to how we can meet the energy security needs through batteries, interconnectors or by forcing companies to have alternative fuels on site. I also tabled an amendment on analysing the impact that this was going to have on domestic bills. For some reason, all of these amendments were ruled out of order on the basis that they were in conflict with the principle of the Bill, which is incredible. I question why they were ruled out. A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I have never seen an instance where amendments were ruled out of order - there is no money message here - because they were in conflict with the principle of the Bill as read a Second Time. I imagine an awful lot of the amendments that go through this House are trying to improve Bills and through that may be in conflict with the Bills' fundamental principles, but I have never seen any amendments being ruled out of order on that basis.

You can take that up with the Ceann Comhairle's office.

I am taking it up here as well because it is clearly wrong-----

They were ruled out of order. The ruling is made.

It is clearly wrong to rule out of order amendments that have no money message on this basis. It completely undermines the Opposition's ability to improve, or put safeguards into, this legislation. It is really important that we have safeguards in it and that when Deputies are making decisions in here or when the public is making up its mind about this LNG facility, they are doing it on the basis of full and transparent information. I am aware that the Minister has said that there are energy security risks associated with any potential impact on the interconnectors with Scotland and the gas intake from them, but the security reviews conducted did not look holistically at alternatives. They did not look to see whether they could pull together a plan that would deal with battery storage, alternative fuels and forcing companies to ensure that they had sufficient storage of fuel on site. That is a real flaw and undermines the whole premise of this debate. The information and evidence are not there to support what the Government is trying to do with this Bill. I will get back to the amendment. It is important as part of that that there be a definition of "emergency" on a statutory basis that outlines exactly when this facility can be used. There is a fear that this facility will become a de facto gas intake facility that will end up being run on a commercial basis or, even if it is done on a non-commercial basis, that it will increase our gas usage. I therefore ask that this amendment be considered.

I echo a lot of the points made already about the temporary nature of this and what we have been promised. I am looking at a briefing from the Department of energy on 4 February. We were given numerous briefings by the Department about this. The Minister tried to avoid pre-legislative scrutiny and our committee had to fight for it. We have a report with 43 recommendations, all of which seem to have been ignored in this Bill. This briefing, which was given to us by the Department as part of our pre-legislative scrutiny, talks about this being "a state-owned gas storage facility" that will be "an emergency reserve" and that it "is not intended for commercial use and will not act as a new entry point for gas into the system". It talks about the reserve only being used "in the event of a major disruption to sub-sea gas pipelines". I do not understand, given everything we were told beforehand, why none of this is in the Bill. What is the Minister afraid of? As Deputy Whitmore has said, it gives rise to a lack of trust for those of us who are trying in good faith to scrutinise this legislation and spending huge amounts of time at the committee and in here putting forward proposals if all of that is simply going to be ignored. If the Minister's belief is that this is to be used in emergency circumstances only, then why not say that explicitly in the Bill? Why not have a definition of what an "emergency" is, as the committee recommended? Our fear is that this is just going to add to national gas demand. It is going to facilitate the importation or additional gas, not just gas to be used in emergency circumstances. That is why I am very supportive of this amendment and the other amendments on the emergency nature of this facility and the temporary nature of the reserve. There is a lot of money being invested in this infrastructure. It was €1 billion last time and it will most likely be more at the next estimate. This is long-term fossil fuel infrastructure that is being built. We want to believe that the Minister that this is only going to be used in emergency circumstances and is not going to be commercially driven but there is nothing in this Bill to give us any confidence in that. That is the problem. That is why we are proposing these amendments and I am supporting them.

Amendment No. 18 in this grouping is in my name. Before I get into the substantive issue, it is important to again raise the process that is being followed here. This is important legislation and there are fundamental disagreements over the extent to which it will contribute to our country's energy security, but it is being rushed through both Committee and Report Stages in two hours. There is no need for this Bill to be rushed in this way and I think it is unprecedented, certainly in this Dáil, to see this Bill and another one coming in in two hours' time being rushed in this way. This particular Bill is going to lock us into the use of LNG in our energy mix. It will have long-term consequences. The consequences of this Bill will be felt up to 2050. For a Bill that has a 25-year timeline, we are getting two hours of debate. It is important to put that on record. There is a large set of amendments. This is not filibustering, as these are detailed, researched amendments being put forward by the Opposition. Some them were drawn up with the advice of environmental groups. Those groups wanted to meet the Minister and engage with him on this Bill but he was not available. This is the ability for legislation to be strengthened and we are not getting that. When Committee and Report Stages are banged in together, it shows a Government not taking the issue seriously. It is important to put that on record. In particular, the idea that a brand new piece of fossil fuel infrastructure would be exempted from the application of the climate Act makes a mockery of our country's statements that we take climate action seriously. On the grouping, my amendment proposes that section 7(1) state: The designated strategic gas reserve, including any terminal, infrastructure, or facility developed under this Act, shall remain exclusively in public ownership and under State control and shall not be transferred or outsourced, in whole or in part, to any private commercial entity. It proposes that section 7(2) state: The facility shall be operated solely by a designated public body for emergency energy security purposes and shall not be utilized [sic] for commercial trading of gas supplies by any private enterprise. My amendment is trying to copper-fasten into the Bill the things the Minister has been saying throughout the debate on this legislation, namely, that it will be a publicly owned entity and will only be used for emergency purposes and have no commercial element to it. That has been said throughout this process but it is not in the Bill anywhere and we are trying to put it in. We are trying to bring in a reasoned amendment on this particular point. It is essential that the facility, if it goes ahead, does not contribute to additional net use of gas in the system. In order to secure that, the facility needs to be highly controlled. How do we do that? We ensure that, in the legislation, the gas that would be stored in this reserve would not be traded or sent out to any other body. This supply of gas should be solely for emergency purposes and it should only be an extreme emergency. It should be for that doomsday scenario that is spoken about time and again, that is, an attack on the undersea gas pipeline between Scotland and Northern Ireland. We must also ensure that in a case like that, in such a large energy emergency, it is not the large energy users, which seem to get so much precedence in the Department these days, which are going to benefit. They should be asked to cut their consumption in the case of an emergency like that. In order to achieve these objectives, the legislation needs to be changed to clearly articulate that it is State-owned and State-run and that there are clear controls put in for the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. By accepting this amendment, my amendment or some of the similar amendments proposed by other Deputies, the Minister could go at least some of the way to addressing the concerns raised by Opposition Deputies and NGOs that have raised these issues about the operation of the facility. He will actually be guaranteeing the political points he has made throughout this argument, which is that it is going to be publicly controlled. If it is, he should say it. It should be stated in the legislation. If it is not going to add to the overall supply of gas, he should state it, and put it into the legislation. We will listen to the Minister's response to this group of amendments but I cannot see why these basic levels of protection would not be codified within the Bill.

I am speaking in support of the Sinn Féin amendments. The Minister has failed in his job to guarantee the energy security of our people. He cannot guarantee that the lights will stay on. Now we are in a position where the Government intends to spend €1 billion to facilitate the development of a liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminal, as a so-called strategic gas reserve in County Clare, where I am based. That is wrong for our communities and wrong for energy security and climate obligations. Even the Minister's own energy package is clear that the best way to support energy security and meet climate commitments is to build a renewable-led energy system, not a fossil-led system, and prioritise reductions in gas demand. More gas is not the same as more security. Dependence on imported fossil fuels is precisely what has left us exposed. Ireland is among the most fossil fuel dependent countries in Europe and we have fallen behind because too many Government plans exist only on paper. We might look at offshore wind. We have an incredible untapped potential. We have 640 GWs, yet how much is being delivered? Absolutely nothing - zero. Instead of harnessing that massive natural resource, the Government is rolling out the red carpet for commercial LNG, disapplying the planning Acts, carving out exemptions from normal conditions and, as we have seen in County Clare, failing to properly engage with local communities. That is not democratic participation. It is bypassing the very people who have to live with the consequences. While hundreds of thousands of people struggle to pay their energy bills, which are the highest in Europe, those with disabilities cannot reliably charge vital machines. This LNG plan will drive bills up even higher. The estimated €60 million annual running costs will be socialised through an additional levy on household bills. Ordinary people should not be forced to foot the bill for Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's energy security failures. The Government should be bringing prices down, not adding new hikes. Any State-led facility must be subject to full democratic oversight and scrutiny, not exemptions or shortcuts. Real energy is energy for homes and businesses delivered by accelerating renewables, modernising the grids, prioritising storage and energy efficiency and insisting on proper community benefit and ownership. It is planning with communities, not against them. It is ending the stop-start short-term fixes and finally delivering the long-term infrastructure this island needs. That is why Sinn Féin supports greater public investment and public ownership in renewables to achieve genuine Irish energy dependence. It is critical for our security and it is the surest way to bring down costs for households and small businesses. We want expanded public local community and domestic ownership so that our vast natural resources become a national wealth for all. Community engagement must be real and respectful, not to stymie progress but to ensure fairness and accountability and that is not what we have seen in County Clare. The choice is stark. The Government can double down on imported fossil fuels and higher bills or it can choose a renewables-led system, rapid offshore wind delivery and grid upgrades. It can demand side measures that cut bills, partnerships with communities that give people a stake and a say, transparent Government and value for money. Sinn Féin chooses energy sovereignty and common sense. We choose to invest in Ireland's future, not in yesterday's fuels and lower bills over levies. I am saying clearly that we need to oppose the LNG terminal as a so-called strategic gas reserve, end the exemptions, respect communities in County Clare and across the island, redirect the €1 billion to help accelerate offshore wind and grid resilience and deliver an energy system that is clean secure, affordable and Irish.

Amendments Nos. 2, 5 and 9 are in my name and Deputy Pa Daly's. This Bill is a bit of a Trojan horse - I think most of us in the Opposition see it as that - around getting commercial LNG and more fossil fuel into the system. Amendment No. 2 inserts a provision to make sure this is for emergency use only. Amendment No. 5 attempts to provide a definition for "temporary" in the Bill. The Minister dropped "emergency" from the Title of the Bill and that really shows that the cloak is falling from the eyes here. People used to say, "Build it and they will come". That is certainly what we think this is. Amendment No. 9 seeks to insert a provision for "Temporary emergency use". This Bill is supposed to be a temporary measure to keep the lights on in an emergency. The only reason we need this Bill is due to the short-sightedness of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael which made sure we were left in this situation where we now need this in an emergency. The Minister can throw his eyes up to heaven but if I had been in government for the past 100 years, I would be embarrassed too, so there you go. We cannot use these kinds of things as an excuse for a day-to-day operation. That is what we are worried about. The signs the Minister has given us so far are certainly making us realise that we cannot be relying on fossil fuels. We were here last week talking about this. I never saw as many Members waiting to speak come in early. They were enjoying the air conditioning in the Chamber. Climate change is real and we have to be ready for it. We had amendments ruled out of order. I will take it up with the Ceann Comhairle but we did offer alternatives around battery storage. We knew we were facing these energy emergencies and the Government did nothing other than bring forward this Bill, which only ties us into more fossil fuel use. Our amendment provides clear legal definitions of "temporary". We have to outline what "temporary" is. "Temporary" could mean ten years to one person. We are proposing a ten-year limit on operations with a review every three years and with a clear expiry clause renewed by the Oireachtas. Our amendment No. 9 also seeks plans for maintenance and plans for decommissioning the unit if it is going to be temporary and for emergency use only. We want the Minister to bring a report to the Houses of the Oireachtas every year, so that we can make sure this is temporary. We have to focus on temporary and emergency use of the emergency reserves. They cannot become a permanent feature of our energy supply. We have to prevent the normalisation of the use of fossil fuels to keep the lights on. Our amendments will guarantee that.

I thank the Deputies who put forward their amendments. First, to restate what the Ceann Comhairle said, I have nothing to do with whether amendments are ruled in or our of order. Deputy Whitmore, in particular, made that case, and Deputy Cronin less so. That is a matter for the Ceann Comhairle's office and completely independent of me. Can we just put in context why we are here? In March 2025, the Government approved the development of a State-led strategic gas reserve. That is critical to securing our energy security as we continue that transition to indigenous clean renewable energy, which we are doing, and this is not instead of that. In the first four or five months of this year we have seen about 50% of our electricity generated through renewable resources, which is good. We want to see that accelerate further. This legislation is in line with a programme for Government priority. It builds on what was the Energy Security in Ireland to 2030: Energy Security Package report. That genuinely cannot be ignored. That was again approved by the previous Government, of which Deputy O'Gorman was a member, back in November 2023. It is consistent with our climate plan because that speaks to energy security and is a transitional measure, reducing the risk of stranded fossil fuel assets. It is for emergency use only and does not support increased gas demand. The approval of this approach represents a culmination of extensive independent research analysis and engagement, all of which have been published. There was four weeks of pre-legislative scrutiny done at committee, and a good job was done there. This reserve will be in the form of a floating storage and regasification unit, which will be owned on behalf of the State by the system operator, Gas Networks Ireland. GNI is written into the legislation. The location of the reserve is written into the legislation, so it certainly is not about commercialisation of LNG in the Irish mix. This Bill is one of two. This Bill, in particular, provides the process for the direct application to me, as Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, for the development consent, with specified accelerated timelines for each stage of this bespoke consenting process. That is the case because this is urgent. There is a critical risk, which has been identified independently of Government, that if there was disruption to the gas supply that we receive - only 20% of our gas is produced domestically and the remainder is imported - or if, God forbid, something was to happen to the imported gas that we receive while we are still using gas within our energy mix, we would have serious difficulties here, not only from an economic perspective but from a societal perspective as well. We are, right now, dependent on interconnection. We are building further interconnectors on the electricity side. We are building the Celtic interconnector. We are investing heavily in our grid. Renewables are accelerating. Today, I intended the Energy Storage Ireland national conference. We are number three on energy storage. Many people have referred to long-duration battery storage. I agree we need to do more of that. We are actually ranked third in the European Union, behind only Germany and Italy. We have 1.3 GW of installed long-duration battery storage, with a major pipeline of projects to come through. On the amendments in the grouping, this legislation deals with the consenting process. It does not deal with the operation of it. The operation of it will be by way of separate legislation that will specifically state that this will be State owned, State led and State managed, used in extremis, not to increase gas usage in this country whatsoever. It is a risk that has been identified, that cannot be ignored and that needs to be address. We need to ameliorate that risk to our country as we continue to accelerate renewables. We have reached over 8 GW of renewable capacity integrated into our grid, with a significant pipeline of projects. Offshore renewables were mentioned. Our focus is on getting them into development by the end of this decade. I do not control the planning process. We are expecting two decisions, hopefully this year, in that regard. I do not know whether they will be objected to. I have, by the way, engaged with environmental groups in the environmental pillar on their views in relation to this legislation. It is necessary. It is urgent. That is why we need a bespoke planning approach to this. It is why the Deputies will see within the legislation that GNI is mentioned. The location of the site itself is mentioned specifically in the legislation. This is not about building gas terminals all over the country - anything but. This is a strategic reserve, State owned and State led, that is required and this legislation deals with the consenting process itself. With that said, I cannot accept the amendments tabled by the Deputies.

Arising out of what the Minister said, if he does not have a problem with it being temporary or emergency, he should accept the amendments. The Minister mentioned renewable energy and the progress that, he says, has been made with offshore wind. However, in our view and in the view of some Government people also, the Government and previous Governments have been sitting on their hands in relation to offshore wind. We have untapped potential of 540 GW and by 2030, we will find it difficult to match 5 GW. The Minister also mentioned that he has no control over the planning process but, in fact, while he might not be making the decisions, he would have had the power to appoint more High Court judges and appoint more staff to an coimisiún, and previously to An Bord Pleanála, but that was not done. Most of the delays can be attributed to the lack of staffing in those organisations. This is all important. In the amendments about temporary use, which Deputy Cronin had moved, it is important that it actually be temporary use. The Government itself has said that it will probably take five years to create it and then it will be in existence for approximately ten years after that. Is that temporary then? Certainly, it is more medium to long term than a short-term solution to a potential problem that has been outlined. We have asked for a definition of temporary, whereby it should not become permanent by default, with a ten-year limit on the operation, regular reviews every three years and a clear expiry clause unless it is renewed by the Oireachtas. Critically, we want a requirement for a decommissioning plan, also within 12 months, because you cannot build infrastructure such as this without planning an off-ramp or out-clause at the end of it. If it is truly an emergency measure, it should not become an permanent feature. On a broader level, energy security is a fundamental responsibility of Government - keeping the lights on - and this Government has failed in that regard. Instead of delivering a secure, independent, all-island affordable and sustainable energy system, what we have is the first part of a Bill, which is rushed and flawed, repeating the exact same mistakes that have got us here in the first place, with ordinary people asked to pay the price and fork out. As the Minister himself said, we are exposed to geopolitical conflict. We import 80% of our energy. That was never a pathway to energy security but we are still vulnerable because of the failure to invest over the years in offshore wind, in renewables and in our energy future. As we move towards a united Ireland, we need to have an energy system that is destined to be used by the whole of the island. Rather than fixing these structural failures, this Bill is doubling down, locking us further into fossil fuel dependence. It would never have been suggested a number of years ago that we would have to bring in fracked gas, on which there was a ban, but in the immediate aftermath of the last election, it was trumpeted that the ban on fracked gas had been removed by this Government. That is why we have brought forward our comprehensive set of amendments, not to obstruct but to help and to protect households, the public interest and our energy future. We will get to some of them later when we are talking about the potential increase to household bills.

I have a couple of points on what the Minister said. As part of our pre-legislative scrutiny, we looked at the energy security review that this is all based on. The review was conducted a number of years ago. The international situation has changed markedly since that review was conducted. Even the price of LNG on the markets has increased massively since Trump's war on Iran. We had asked for that review to be updated in light of the most recent massive market instability in the fossil fuel market. We also believe that review was flawed in terms of the solutions it offered or the potential solutions that it looked at. It seems to have looked at solutions in isolation. We have gone through all of this previously. It looked at this sort of reserve versus an interconnector or the reserve versus a battery, whereas it does not seem to have looked at this strategic LNG reserve versus batteries, interconnectors and wind, or whatever, in a mix like that. We had asked at pre-legislative scrutiny for that to be reviewed prior to this Bill being put forward here, and that just has not been done. Therefore, I do not necessarily accept the Minister's arguments that this is the only way. We all understand that energy security is necessary, just not that this is the only way to achieve that, and that seems to be what the Minister comes back to repeatedly. Something else the Minister mentioned is that the Bill before us today is about the consenting process and that we will see another Bill in due course in relation to the operations of the reserve, but it seems that is an arbitrary distinction and that there is a lot of overlap, and you would imagine there would be a lot of reference points in this Bill that would relate to the operational aspect of a reserve. The Minister has used a lot of strong language, which I welcome, in his commitments regarding how this reserve is going to operate. He said it is not going to increase our State's gas use whatsoever and that it is not going to be commercially run but State owned and temporary. Again, however, we have not seen the heads of the Bill yet. At this point, we have to take all this on trust, with nothing else to refer to, including the decommissioning at the end of this process, when the time comes for the State to decide we do not need this any more. We are taking a lot of things on faith here. As I said, we gave many recommendations to the Minister by the climate committee in its pre-legislative scrutiny that we do not see here or anywhere else. That is why we are taking some of these positions today.

This is a bespoke piece of legislation and a bespoke consenting process for this particular facility. It is a complete exception to our planning process, so it is not good enough for the Minister to say the Government will deal with the issue of public ownership in the second, subsequent piece of legislation. There is absolutely no reason the public element that has been articulated by the Minister throughout could not be reiterated in this legislation. We are doing something entirely new and novel here, and clarity on the public ownership and operation could absolutely be built into this legislation. This would at least alleviate that concern in advance of the second piece of legislation. I do not think the Minister's point on why he is rejecting amendment No. 18 and other amendments holds water. On the wider question of the strategic decision that I and others believe the Minister is taking, this will result in us being locked into LNG well into the next decade. It means focus, resources and money. Let us not forget this is costing us €900 million now and no doubt will be more when the time comes. This strategic decision to spend money here means money will be taken away from the energy transition. The Minister regularly speaks about his accelerating renewable electricity task force and all the great things it has been able to do, but I wonder what that task force says the barriers are when he meets with it. Both he and the Minister, Deputy Chambers, come in here and say the barriers are the planning process, the climate Act and this and that, but when we meet the renewable energy organisations, the first thing they all say is there are not enough staff in An Coimisiún Pleanála and that its decision-making time has increased over the past six months. That is what they tell us; maybe they are wrong, but I do not think they are, to be honest. An Coimisiún Pleanála's size has grown, but it is still not enough. It is still not enough for the level of work it has to do, which is everything from offshore wind to a planning appeal about an extension beside my house. It all ends up in An Coimisiún Pleanála and there is not the capacity or bandwidth to get those decisions done. I do not understand this absolute fixation the Ministers, Deputies O'Brien and Chambers, have about not putting the resources into the one intersecting point of so much of our transport, electricity and infrastructure decisions. Trotting out this line about the Government having doubled it over a certain period is not good enough. The bodies in industry representing wind, solar and battery storage all say it to us, and I have no doubt they are saying it to the Minister in his electricity task force. I have no doubt that when the Minister was meeting with the energy storage groups today, they also brought forward the blockages they see, namely, no clear total amount of electricity storage requirement for the country, one of the key things set out in the task force report published in July 2024; and no clear renewable energy support system for battery storage, putting it at a disadvantage when compared with other forms of renewable energy. This also puts Ireland at a disadvantage compared with other member states, where they are putting in place those supports. The people who have planning permission for battery storage here in Ireland but have not built out yet will move. The money will move if other member states are putting in that financial support. I think it was in April that 18% of the renewable energy in this country was wasted because we did not have the battery storage there. We may be third in Europe but we are still wasting large amounts of renewable energy that can help us make this energy transition and help cut bills for households across this country. That is where the Minister's Department and political focus should be, rather than locking us further into LNG.

This Bill is an admission of failure. It is an admission of failure on energy policy and energy security. It is an admission of failure of several Governments' inability to plan properly for energy in Ireland. I had to stop myself for a second and think that, yes, it is 2026 - that is what is written on the Bill - but we have climate goals to 2030 and we have to get to net zero by 2050. Does the Minister know how long it takes to build an LNG terminal and to develop these gasification units? It takes years. I expect the Minister might be at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the LNG terminal when it is commissioned, which might be in 2030, when we are trying to hit climate targets. That is a huge problem. This is a huge step backwards. When I was born in October 1987, the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 346; it is now 431. We are going in the absolute opposite direction. With one of the first energy bills it has brought forward after the Critical Infrastructure Bill has been passed, this Government has decided on one on gas - not on wind, accelerating solar or ensuring we have alternative or sustainable fuels but instead for us to import fracked gas from other parts of the world. That is a huge admission of failure and a huge problem. They say one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. We have seen what gas prices have done to our economy and what the reliance on fossil fuels has done to our economy, first with the invasion of Ukraine and second with the war in Iran, yet we are going to say we want more gas. Is that the answer here? Is that what the Government's policy is here? I absolutely appreciate there is an energy security issue - 100% - but why would the first Bill we bring forward under climate or critical infrastructure not be on renewables rather than fossil fuels? It does not make any sense, and it certainly does not make sense under these timelines, when Government is trying to hit climate goals by 2030 and get to net zero by 2050. This terminal will be operational by 2050, if the Government goes ahead with it. Of course it will. Why would it not be? The Government is giving no rationale as to how it will hit these climate goals by 2030. In fact, it has already admitted failure, and we are four years out from it. In some ways, it feels like we have lost our minds here. We have lost a sense of what we are trying to do with climate change and the energy mix. The idea of building gas infrastructure, even emergency gas infrastructure, seems like the direction entirely opposite to where we should be going. I have to agree with my colleague Deputy O'Gorman. The idea that this, probably one of the most significant energy infrastructure interventions in the State that are going to be considered in this Dáil, is being guillotined after two hours and that we are spending two hours debating it at the last three Stages of the Dáil process, is outrageous. It is unconscionable. The Government is also not accepting any of the very well-crafted amendments from colleagues, including my colleague Deputy Whitmore, to ensure it is in public ownership and to determine whether it is actually temporary or emergency. For many people outside this Chamber, it feels as though we are going in the opposite direction and that climate change is not a priority for this Government. It is going to continue to do the same thing it has always done, which is to rely on fossil fuels, which will not bring us energy security and will not allow us to fulfil our climate goals or live up to the promise of climate action and its great opportunities. If we continue with this, it is going to be absolutely devastating. I implore the Government for its next Bill to please bring forward something that is going to incentivise renewables to be built. We have no operational offshore wind farms in this country. We had more 20 years ago. It is outrageous. I am very disappointed with this Bill, but I am far more disappointed by the Government's reaction to the very worthwhile amendments from colleagues here and the guillotining of this debate.

Today is 30 June. It should go down as the day of the bonfire of our climate targets. In this one swift afternoon, we will make real the Minister's softly saying just after Christmas this year that we would not reach our energy targets. What does that look like in reality? It looks like ramming through measures, with no parliamentary oversight, no proper debate and, in the case of the next Bill we will discuss, no economic impact assessment, which will mean we are not coming close to meeting our climate targets because they are being ignored. We now have this climate change legislation. Every time we raised previously, whether we would reach our climate targets, the answer was not to worry because we have legally binding targets and, therefore, we will meet them because it is the law, and we have to meet the law. Now we are just disapplying the law to anything to do with climate. We are disapplying the law from LNG, data centres and Dublin Airport. If anything is actually polluting, we are told the climate targets do not apply to that and not to worry about that. It is a joke. We are all expecting the world to go along with the idea that we are all following the science and doing what we need to do when the Government is absolutely in hock to fossil fuel companies, the big airlines, Donald Trump and the people who are responsible for destroying our planet and hoping that people just stay asleep. That is what this two-hour debate is about, what the next two-hour debate is about and what I would say the two-hour debate after that, with respect to AI, is about too. It is about avoiding a real airing of the issues here and hoping that people do not notice that this Government is utterly abandoning all climate commitments, in this case basically in order to satisfy Donald Trump. Who will pay for that? Our children and grandchildren will pay for it. We see the impact of climate change, even in Europe, where people are dying as a result of extreme heat. In a more immediate sense, people will pay with euro from their pockets. This thing will cost €1 billion or more. Who will pay for that? The public will pay by a household levy on energy bills. The public will pay for this LNG development. The Government is locking in fossil fuels. That is the consequence of investing in fossil fuel infrastructure. We should not be investing in any fossil fuel infrastructure at all. It flies in the face of the science. The Government is locking in not just any fossil fuel infrastructure but the dirtiest possible fossil fuel infrastructure because, ultimately, this is about fracked gas coming from the USA. The Climate Change Advisory Council told the Government that further expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure through an LNG terminal will commit Ireland to further fossil fuel lock-in. It told the Government and it is simply ignoring the council. This is not dealing with the issue of energy security. It is making us reliant on Donald Trump for energy security, or the next US Administration. The consequence is devastating. I put on the record now the hazards that are present here. I quote Stop Shannon LNG, which stated: The importing of LNG is associated with hazards such as gas explosions, threatening local communities. A key risk in LNG facilities is an uncontrolled release of a cryogenic, toxic, or flammable fluid. This can include liquid releases that form a pool on the ground or water and ignite, creating a potentially long-lasting pool fire. That is on the Minister of State and this Government. The disastrous effects of locking us into fossil fuels and tearing up all of our targets is also on the Government. I think energy security is the Trojan horse. The Government wraps up LNG and says it is energy security. We were not originally told and people will not understand this. The whole terminal has to be emptied six times a year, so a large portion of the gas currently used in this country will end up being fracked gas. It is a Trojan horse. The Government is not excluding commercial developments in this Bill. The original argument was not to worry because it would only be this one emergency reserve, and it would just sit there. That has moved to being something that will sit there and be emptied six times a year, and the Bill is open to it being moved even further. If the Government was serious about the issue of energy security, it would be investing in battery storage, interconnectors, and different forms of renewable energy that work in different weather conditions, including wind, solar, hydro and so on. What is this about? It is about being friendly to Donald Trump. This is a key ask in terms of the tensions between US imperialism and the EU. He basically had two asks. One was to buy more energy and the second was to buy more of our weapons. This is about appeasing Donald Trump. It is also about a matter related to not the next Bill but the one after that, the AI Bill, which is saying to big tech companies not to worry about all the energy usage, that they have a green light to go and use as much energy as they want for their data centres and that we will burn more and more fossil fuels to facilitate data centres. The idea that we can continue on this track of expanded energy usage, in the best case scenario simply uses up the extra renewable capacity that we are adding, or in the worst case scenario, the vista that is being opened here for commercial LNG and what is happening in many data centres around the country that we will burn gas. In this case, we will burn fracked gas as a consequence. I am interested in the Minister of State's response. The main thing is that we can agree or disagree on any of these arguments. That is fine. It is a disgrace not to allow us to debate the Bill, not to have a Committee Stage that can go through it properly, not to give proper time on Report Stage and not to allow us to get through the vast majority of the amendments that we have before us. It is a disgrace and it is a conscious and cynical move by the Government.

I am glad to get the opportunity to welcome that Shannon Energy has got approval to bring in and store gas, and to give us another option. We have a duty to the taxpayers and the people in every county, including Kerry, to deliver energy to them at the cheapest rate possible. I have said here to the Minister of State on many occasions that since we closed Bord na Móna, the cost of electricity has gone up each day. The worst mistake that any Government made was to close it down in one go before we were assured that we had enough energy options, such as more wind turbines or whatever it is. We could be deriving more energy from our rivers. We are deprived of and stopped from doing that. The Sweeney's in Kilgarvan generated their own electricity back in the mid-1930s, and the O'Shea's in Kenmare generated it for the town of Kenmare around the same time. We are not allowed to go near a river to do anything like that now. We cannot do anything like that now. What is happening here in case people do not know is that for the past number of years, we have been buying gas at its dearest price, because it is only coming from one route, from north east of us. That is why we are paying more for electricity. The other reason is that we have an energy regulator that is not accountable. Talking about climate targets, I know and many people know, although they are afraid to say it, that no matter what we do on this Earth, we will not change the weather. The weather has been changing for centuries. In the 12th and 13th centuries, it changed from warm to cold. In the 15th and 16th centuries, massive amounts of rain fell. In the 1740s, we had a famine. A third of our people were wiped out because it never stopped raining for two years. There were no combustible engines at that time. There were far fewer cattle. In 1896, 12 acres of bog were washed down 12 miles into the lakes of Killarney from Gneevgullia and blocked every bridge on the way down. In the 1890s, there were 11 men in a field in the Clydagh Valley making up hay. Before they knew what they were, they were all washed down the river in a flash and into the lakes of Killarney. Those are true facts. There have been storms and nights of big winds at all those different times. I have the dates. They are facts. There was no human intervention at that time. Humans could not be blamed for the activity that changed the weather. A lot of people would want to realise that. A report has come out from some scientist in Europe. I do not see the Government coming forward with it. It depicts that a lot of what the climatologists are saying is wrong and that the figures they are going on are totally and absolutely wrong. I will bring that report to the House as soon as it is put into my hands. I do welcome, after many false dawns, that Shannon LNG will get the green light to move ahead. That will mean a lot for Kerry, especially the northern part of the county. It will also mean a lot for parts of Clare that the Minister of State represents. It will mean a lot of employment and help to encourage people to stay in Kerry and Clare and, more important than anything else, to stay in our country and to vote confidence in it by staying here. We need other options for energy. Until we have enough wind power and ways of storing the energy that is created by wind turbines, we need an alternative in the meantime. People are under savage pressure. Members of this House cannot say, on the one hand, that the cost of living has gone up and, on the other, ask what the Government or anyone else is doing about it. The cost of energy is the cause of all the trouble. People on the roads are buying petrol and diesel. People at home are buying home heating oil and gas to keep themselves warm. People are entitled - this generation is as entitled as any to stay warm. It is a fright to God to think that old people are afraid to put sods of turf on the fire. At the same time, bombs and drones are going off every day and lighting up the skies in the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia. We are telling people here that it is wrong to be burning or cutting turf. We have gone stone mad out of our minds altogether when we are telling the people those kinds of stories. In case that the Deputies do not know it, people are talking about climate change and all the money that is going into it. We are narrowing roads for the sake of climate change. We are widening footpaths and building cycleways. No one is cycling because after they travel a few hundred yards or a mile on these cycleways, they must go onto an ordinary and narrow road to get to their homes. That does not make any sense. We narrowed a national secondary road a while back. As Councillor Johnny Healy-Rae said at a recent meeting of Kerry County Council, we have made a bohereen out of the national secondary road that starts off in Killarney and goes around the Ring of Kerry. Two vehicles of any kind cannot pass each other on that road now without their wing mirrors striking each other. That is what we have done in the name of climate change. These are the ridiculous things. I especially want to recognise the fact that Shannon LNG has been given the green light after so many false dawns. Many individuals and companies have put so much money into that over a number of years. Those involved invested €60 million in it. That was money that people were prepared to put into it and that they had worked hard for. They saw that this was a way of helping our country. At least we will have it. If people can come forward with other ideas for creating energy, they should please do so. No one here is stopping them from doing that, but do not make people pay any more for energy than what they are paying for it at present. It is going up by 16% and 18%. Then, just to prove that there is no regulator, some other company dropped it by 12%. There is no law or order in the regulation of the cost of electricity at present. The poor people who go on the road in the mornings are paying a massive amount as a result of carbon tax being added to the cost of fuel. Those people go out on the roads to get to work or to deliver stuff in lorries, whether it is materials for housebuilding or foodstuffs for supermarkets, and it is costing them massive money. We could be doing a lot better and a lot more in respect of the cost of energy. We have oil off of west Cork and gas off the Kerry coast. We are not being allowed to tap into either. If we bring it from the nearest point, the poor people at home will pay for it. It is time we copped on and listened to other people, because there are things other than climate change that need to be addressed. It is fine if everything else is sorted out, but people are being driven into the ground with the cost of living. No matter how much they earn, they have nothing left for to pay for houses and for the energy to heat them or for the costs related to getting to work.

An Teachta Healy-Rae should correct the record. It was not a bit of rain that caused the Famine. The failure of one crop did not cause the Famine that decimated-----

I said the 1740-----

----- our population.

I am sorry; I must clarify this.

Shame on you. You are a disgrace.

I said 1740, not 1840. There were two famines. There was the second one that the Deputy is talking about with the potatoes. The 1740 famine was created by rain that never stopped falling for two years. Those are the facts and that is the truth.

Deputy Healy-Rae can support our next amendment, because it is relevant.

The Deputy can support me when I am right.

I am thankful for the opportunity to respond to the strongly held views of many Opposition Members. There is a bit of divergence between some of them, and I must respect that. People's views are strongly held. We might argue over the detail. What I want to reflect about this Bill that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and I have brought forward is that it is purely about energy security. Maybe we do not all accept it, but a lot of people in this House and in society generally accept that we need to transition away, for a couple of reasons, from our dependence on imported fossil fuels. There are the climate emissions targets. The latter are recognised as an important aspect of this. I must also reflect on what Deputy Healy-Rae has just said. We might have a difference of opinion about how we get there, but I know what he is talking about in terms of the cost of energy. It is my strongly held view and that of the Government that if we bring more renewables onto the grid from our own resources - from wind and solar within our remit - we will reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels. That will ultimately reduce the price and benefit everyone across the country. For those who are looking at it from a different angle in terms of the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and the impact that is having on climate change, I refer to the fact that this is not going to be gas traded into the marketplace. It is a storage facility that will be there in the event of a rupture or a disruption to the supply through the interconnectors from the North Sea via the UK and Scotland. Principally, it is storage. It will be a State-owned and State-controlled facility. It is not a market initiative. It is not an attempt to use LNG as a price lever to compete with the supplies that are already there. It is not aimed at creating a market tension that would reduce prices and, therefore, make us more dependent. It is really just about storage. I understand where Members are coming from, but it does not and will not add one extra element of carbon dioxide emissions. In the event of there being a disruption, it will replace gas that would already have been provided into the market. This is about critical infrastructure and ensuring that our hospitals and other key facilities that are dependent on gas, principally for heat, will be able to remain in operation for whatever length of time it might take to repair the supply line. I also take the points made by Deputies Murphy and Ahern on why this legislation is being rushed through in an emergency way. We are already making significant headway in relation to our plan-led approach to the capture of wind off our shoreline. We had the recent designation through the designated maritime area plan, DMAP, process off the south-east coast. We had a very successful auction. Where other countries that are attempting to capture wind off their shorelines or in their seas have been unable to get bidders, we had three or four bidders for the auction in December. Some 900 MW have been secured. The process is now going through the final permissions aspect. It is working really well. There are three other suitable locations within that overall designated area. They will go to auction soon. There is interest from other companies in this regard. The Government is working really hard. The Minister, Deputy O’Brien, myself and others are in regular contact with the marketplace to encourage investment and to show that Ireland has a long-term plan in place. We are working on a national DMAP or designation of more suitable sites around our coastline that have the capacity to generate up to 15 GW of electricity out to 2040. That is the kind of approach we are taking. I understand the politics of it, but it is unfair to say that we are ignoring the opportunity regarding renewables. In recognising that it is a slow process, we are derisking it for those investors who are going to come in. We are doing the mapping and collecting the data ,and we will be providing it to those entities as part of the auction process. Unlike what happened with the phase 1 projects, which were effectively developer led, we have moved to take control. That work is already done and we are working through it but it would be foolhardy to just say that because we have a plan to capture effectively 20 GW of wind energy, and some additional solar on shore out to 2040, we can somehow ignore the necessity to store gas as we transition away from the use of fossil fuels. I understand what Deputies Ahern and Murphy said about battery storage. It is there but it will not be sufficient in the short term. They also spoke about other liquid fuels. The Department and the Government are working on a hydrogen strategy, so we are working towards identifying other solutions. The ESB recently published a report which effectively said we cannot get to net zero by 2050 by renewables alone. We have to use liquid fuels, and hydrogen would be the obvious one in that regard. That creates huge opportunities, because we will have a quantum of electricity generated from renewables. Generally, the wind blows better at night when demand is less. Rather than grounding or not utilising that electricity, it can effectively be converted to hydrogen or ammonia in a more stable way. There are opportunities for exports as well as storage in that regard. That is the longer term plan. Work is being done on that. I accept that there is an investment in infrastructure, but I do not accept the point that we are locking ourselves in. If we had put this out to the marketplace and asked for outside investment in a market-driven initiative where you would be building hard infrastructure, that accusation would stand up. In this instance, however, I cannot accept it because we are talking about a piece of floating infrastructure. There will be some onshore infrastructure to be built, which will be relatively minor in both overall and cost terms. The big element is the ship and its location. When we get to a point where we do not need that back-up storage and we either have enough batteries in place or are generating enough electricity to be able to look to hydrogen storage, we can move that piece of fossil fuel kit on to another location, dispense with it or sunset it. Another thing I would like to mention in more general terms, because I think will arise in respect of some of the other amendments, is that this Bill is about getting moving really quickly on the permissions that are necessary to get the infrastructure in place. As stated on Second Stage, the operation will be dealt with in another Bill. What the Deputies’ are trying to stitch in here by means of their amendments might be better addressed in the context of that legislation. This Bill is just about permissions. Hopefully, that will give Deputies an understanding of what the Government is doing. We are not in a position to accept the amendments.

I want to bring the Minister of State back to something specific which matters more than the amendment I tabled. During pre-legislative scrutiny, the joint committee made a recommendation which states: The Minister shall authorise a transparent and publicly available cost-benefit analysis not less than 60 days prior to any decision which shall inform the approval process of the proposed development. It recommended that this analysis should have regard to the adopted carbon budgets and sectoral ceilings under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Acts, the most recent climate action plan and the Government-approved electrification pathways. I had the backing of the committee on this. The Minister of State indicated that the Bill is just for planning. Why not put this into the Bill now in order that we, as legislators, can see a cost-benefit analysis done, particularly as the only publicly available one was done in 2023? In the context of a €900 million investment, it would be of much more benefit if we could see how many more GW or MW might possibly be added at multiple ports. We know Belfast is one of the only ports on the island that can handle large-scale offshore renewable energy, ORE. I urge the Minister of State to bring this to the Department. We have not seen that, so it is difficult for us to go in blindfolded. All the committee members received a letter saying that while the Bill before us will provide an expedited planning consent pathway, the next Bill will, as the Minister of State outlined, set out the operation, use and potential cost. With a €900 million piece of energy infrastructure, we need to know what is in scope and how much could have been done by means of an alternative approach. I am familiar with the argument about energy security and lower cost energy- and the Minister of State can correct me if I am wrong – in the first 24 hours of the Iran-US war, global LNG prices rose by 43%. If we are looking to secure energy, surely having our own low-cost ORE batteries would help. I like the fact that other Deputies mentioned my batteries. I would have loved for all of them to have come to my meeting in the audiovisual room. Some did not attend. Representatives from Energy Storage Ireland were there. They spoke about the difficulties the company is having at the moment. I welcome the announcements by the Department in relation changing the cost of battery chargers. That is brilliant. Sodium batteries are the best batteries. These will be how we can decentralise our grid. They need to be looked at as part of any cost-benefit analysis. That is not a radical ask, it would hold us to a correct standard. Will this matter be given the serious consideration it deserves? The members of the climate committee deserve to see this information. It was noted that while it will be taken into consideration, it is not relevant to this Bill. I am not opposed to the Bill in principle, but I would urge that we get a cost-benefit analysis because we are being asked to approve a framework that cedes significant planning and environmental disapplication powers worth hundreds of millions of euro. The estimated cost is €900 million, but other things were estimated at €900 million previously and ended up costing €2.5 billion. In that context, I ask that we take a good approach and that a cost-benefit analysis be carried out. It could strengthen the case. I might welcome this with more open arms if a cost-benefit analysis were done. I asked about this and was informed yesterday that Annex IV C is the most up-to-date analysis which considers the estimated cost of this Bill in comparison with the alternative mitigation options considered. There was no more detailed cost-benefit analysis publicly available, beyond the one conducted and the preliminary business case. I ask that it is issued to us as legislators as we are making a huge decision on the infrastructure of our country. I would like if that could be taken back to the Department.

I will try to be swift, so we can move on. We have heard the same speech from Deputy Danny Healy-Rae on a number of occasions, effectively denying human-caused climate change by saying we have had storms and extreme weather events in the past. Yes, we have had storms and extreme weather events in the past. That is not evidence against human-created climate change. The evidence is very clear. There is a clear scientific consensus. Deputy Healy-Rae says he has heard that some paper exists that proves the climatologists and climate scientists are all wrong and when he gets his hands on it he will bring it here. He obviously has not read the paper. He knows it exists somewhere out there in the ether, and he trusts it because it tells him what he wants to hear, which is that climate change is not happening. People know themselves. The past 11 years have been the 11 hottest years on record. We know that decade after decade, for six decades now, each has been hotter than the one before it. We know the oceans are heating up and that they are becoming increasingly acidic. We know, and people know from their own experience, that we have more and more extreme weather events. It is not just people's own experience. It is also tracked. You could go on and on but this is the settled scientific consensus. To be honest, I am less concerned about the climate denialism of Deputy Healy-Rae. He is entitled to his opinion. I think he is wrong, and I think the scientific consensus really says that there is no basis for what he is saying.

You are entitled to your opinion.

I am less concerned about that. It is fine. The main thing I have a problem with is that we have a Government that did not really make an effort there to object to the climate denialism but will, on occasion, object to climate denialism and will say it recognises the science. We have a Government that says climate change is real and accepts that climate change is caused by fossil fuels. It accepts that climate change is a consequence of the greenhouse gas emissions. It says we are going to sign up to legally binding climate targets because we take this seriously and care about the future of our planet, and then it totally ignores it all. That is worse in a way. If Deputy Healy-Rae were in charge and said he did not believe in any of this climate change nonsense, that it had nothing to do with human activity, that we were going to go full steam ahead for fracked gas and were going to drill for fracked gas here and asked what the problem is with more fossil fuel usage, that, in a way, is logically coherent. If fossil fuels are not the problem, then what is the problem? However, the Government accepts that fossil fuels are the problem but nonetheless says full steam ahead for LNG. It nonetheless says full steam ahead with expansion of Dublin Airport and full steam ahead for data centres and AI. I really think that is worse. It knows what it is doing is going to destroy the planet and hurt people in the pocket here and now but nonetheless it is going full steam ahead and will not even allow a proper debate on these issues.

I move amendment No. 3: In page 7, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following: “ “emergency” means a situation where the State is experiencing a significant and protracted physical disruption of gas supply, or other catastrophic deterioration of the supply situation, and where— (c) all relevant market-based measures have been fully implemented, exhausted, and proven insufficient to meet gas demand, and (d) non-market-based measures must be introduced to safeguard gas supplies to protected customers, in accordance with the criteria for an Emergency Level under Article 11(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1938. For the avoidance of doubt, an emergency does not include localised network constraints, or routine seasonal increases in gas demand where physical supply remains available;”.

Amendments Nos. 4, 16 and 19 are related and will be discussed together.

I move amendment No. 4: In page 8, after line 39, to insert the following: " "hydraulically fractured gas” means liquefied natural gas, or natural gas in any other form, that has been produced, in whole or in part, by means of hydraulic fracturing within the meaning of section 5A of the Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act 1960;" This amendment is about fracked gas, which is not something we have spoken about yet in the debate. The amendment has been tabled with a view to trying to be constructive and to building more safeguards into the use of this facility. It relates to consenting, in that this is the type of product that will be going through a licensed or designated facility and the Government should be cognisant of what is going through, and the State needs to be cognisant of what is being used, in these facilities. If this facility is going to exist, we want the gas being used in it to be the least destructive gas possible. We know that LNG, particularly when sourced from the US as we suspect the LNG for this facility is going to be, is usually derived from fracking but this practice is not defined in the Bill before us. This is why I have included a definition of "hydraulically fractured gas" as meaning "liquefied natural gas, or natural gas in any other form, that has been produced, in whole or in part, by means of hydraulic fracturing within the meaning of section 5A of the Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act 1960". That Act defines hydraulic fracturing and, as we know, an amendment to that Act in 2017 banned the practice of fracking in Ireland, although not the importation of fracked gas. At the time, the Minister of State spoke of Fianna Fáil's well-known opposition to fracking and acknowledged the detrimental environmental impacts. Unfortunately, a subsequent Government policy statement introducing a de facto ban on the importation of fracked gas was overturned for the purposes of developing this LNG facility. The Government is willingly enabling an incredibly destructive environmental practice so long as others have to deal with the cost. One of the issues we had with the overturning of the ban on the importation of fracked gas was that it was not restricted solely to this facility, which we understand to be a State-led and operated facility. It has essentially created a free-for-all for other commercial operators to import fracked gas as well. We know just how destructive fracked gas is. While burning it produces less carbon dioxide than coal, the extraction processes release enormous amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae said earlier to stop talking about climate targets when we are talking about these types of facilities. Okay, but then let us talk about something else. Let us talk about human health and human rights when it comes to fracked gas. We know that North American fracking operations for oil and gas are driving the current surge in global levels of methane. We know that methane has contributed approximately 40% of all global warming to date. We know that fracking is so damaging to the environment. It releases toxic air pollution, contaminates water and results in earthquakes, as well as significant other public health impacts. It is an environmental injustice, with injuries not borne equally by all. There is a reason we banned it here. It is more than a little hypocritical that we would ban it in our own country and for our people but then allow its importation from other countries from where maybe the effects will not be felt so keenly as they are here. We also know that the liquefaction and transportation of natural gas as liquefied natural gas, LNG, raises its greenhouse gas emissions even further, by another 30%. This is because of the need for evaporative cooling and venting and because flaring is used to control pressure during regasification. Just today, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, released a call to action on methane. This all relates back to the imported fracked gas. I am referring to the methane being released. The Secretary General said that methane has been responsible for nearly one third of global warming to date and that it remains significantly underprioritised in climate action and political decision-making. He also said that, "Cutting methane emissions is one of the fastest, cheapest and most effective opportunities to slow global warming in the near term while delivering cleaner air, stronger crop yields, improved health and major economic benefits." The UN wants countries worldwide to make methane more measurable, reportable and verifiable. It is looking for transparency and empirical data in relation to reporting methane emissions and so on. All this goes back to this being a regressive move by the State to be facilitating the import of this highly damaging fracked gas, which releases so much methane. At the same time, we are disapplying section 15 of the climate Act from all of this. This means there is even less transparency and less counting of the emissions that this facility will generate. We know that the CEOs of LNG companies would not live beside the facilities their companies build. We can talk about jobs and the economic benefits of all these facilities but they do, worldwide, have serious human health and human rights consequences that I do not think this Government is taking seriously enough. This is why I am proposing this amendment.

After the last general election, there was almost an unseemly rush to be out to congratulate the Government by some people for its change of mind in relation to fracked gas. It comes down to the basic issue of fairness and a just transition. We have heard about the issues in respect of destroying communities in the United States. Affordability of energy is also fundamental and is something that should be prioritised. Unfortunately, however, it has often been treated as an afterthought by this Government and previous Governments. When the strategic gas reserve was first announced, it was said that ongoing operational costs would be paid for through the introduction of a new levy or by being integrated into an existing one. In other words, ordinary people will foot the bill, or it is the intention that they will foot the bill, for the Government’s failure to guarantee our energy security over many years. Families across the State are already dealing with some of the highest energy prices in Europe. I do not need to go into this topic again today. Ordinary people paying their bills, ordinary householders, did not design this broken system. They should not, therefore, be forced to pay for a solution and a problem that the Government has created. The amendments that we brought forward, and the subsequent amendments, are clear that the Government must guarantee there is no socialisation of costs into the bills of households or SMEs. There should be a requirement for the regulator to assess the full cost of the impact on households. We have had other legislation giving more power to the regulator to hold energy companies to account, for example. There should also be an obligation on the Minister to mitigate the costs because energy security cannot come at the expense of affordability, given how tardy the Government has been with offshore and renewable energy over many years. The Government is supposed to be a safety net for people and not the other way around. This infrastructure, if it is strategic, must be State-led. Unfortunately, this State has less investment in offshore wind in our own waters than the French state and the Norwegian state. There should be more public involvement to move towards energy affordability, because private companies are obviously going to have to make increased profits year after year. If this infrastructure is State-led, publicly owned and operated in the public interest, that could go some way to reducing energy bills. Otherwise, it is hard to guarantee it. Without the guarantee of this being State-led, it could - and we have seen it in the previous amendments - risk opening the door to commercial LNG development and private profit. Energy security is not a commercial venture. Energy security, keeping the lights on, is a fundamental responsibility of the State. While this reserve has been justified as an emergency measure, it is important, as we have seen in the last amendment, that any strategic gas reserve should be for emergency use only. It should also not become permanent by default, and this is why we proposed the ten-year limit. The reserve must not be used to drive further fossil fuel lock-in. As we mentioned earlier, and as was discussed, we use 80% imported fuels. We also have an amendment to require annual reporting to the Oireachtas. Without this, the infrastructure creates its own momentum. We see that it will take five years to build this facility and that it will be in operation for ten years, at least, so that is 15 years in total, so there is a very big danger of lock-in. This Bill, as we said previously, is being rushed through without proper scrutiny, and this is unacceptable. Our amendments require independent assessment that this approach is necessary, proportionate and the best available option, and that there be an ongoing biannual review. Crucially, a future assessment of alternatives, including renewables, interconnections, storage and demand-side measures, should also be included in the Bill. The legislation is being rushed through, however, so the reality is that this is unlikely to happen. It is not good enough. Communities are being sidelined, and public consultation and democratic accountability, it seems, have not been used and are not going to happen.

I wish to speak in favour of Deputy Ahern’s amendment. It is important that we focus on the issue of the use of LNG through this facility and, as such, into Ireland’s energy network. Liquefied natural gas is about two thirds more carbon-emitting than traditional natural gas. We are introducing it into our system now, as a number of speakers have already pointed out, in a context where liquefied natural gas was banned through the ban on fracked gas brought in by the previous Government in 2021. This ban applied to the use of fracked gas in all circumstances, whether by State infrastructure or by private infrastructure. That ban was important. One of the first things this Government did was to remove that ban, which my colleague, Eamon Ryan, introduced. That ban was removed on fracked gas being used by either State infrastructure or private infrastructure. We heard Deputy Danny Healy-Rae celebrating the consequences of the removal of that ban on fracked gas. Not all LNG used in the world is fracked but the vast majority of the LNG that comes from the US, which the Government has indicated it would regard as its primary supplier for the facility in Clare, comes from the fracking process, which makes the carbon emissions from LNG even worse. We are tying a new source of energy, LNG, into our energy system. This is a system that was shown not to give security of supply, as demonstrated by the closure of the Ras Laffan gas terminal at the start of the Iran war, and shown not to result in affordability. A 46% increase in the cost of LNG in one day was prompted by that war. LNG is one of the most carbon-intensive versions of gas that exist in the world right now. We are achieving this in the exact same legislation where we are disapplying the analysis of the climate Act to LNG infrastructure. Section 33, which I and others are opposing, will disapply the tests and analysis under section 15 of the climate Act. To think that the newest piece of fossil fuel infrastructure built in this country will not have basic climate analysis applied to it – climate analysis that almost all parties in this House agreed on only a couple of years ago – shows how far the Government has retreated on the issue of climate. A fundamental gap in this legislation is that a new piece of fossil fuel infrastructure will not have this analysis applied to it. By creating this exemption, we are actually building a norm. That norm will be seen in the legislation we will be debating in a couple of minutes, which also has the exemption. That norm was seen in the Critical Infrastructure Bill that this House passed a number of weeks ago. Time and again, this Government is exempting some of the biggest fossil fuel-polluting proposals from an analysis under the climate Act. It is killing the climate Act with 100 or 1,000 small exemptions. It is a very deliberate process, a process we have seen repeated many times. For this reason, my party and I cannot support the legislation before us. It does not give us the energy security we deserve. It does not give us the energy affordability that families need, and it dramatically undermines the decarbonisation agenda that the Government should be following.

I reiterate that there is very little between our understandings of the negative or harmful impact that gas, whether it be natural gas, LNG or any form of methane, has on our climate and on the environment. As I set out in response to the other amendments, the Government has made it abundantly clear that we have to pivot away from the use of fossil fuels. We are doing so and have a strategy for doing so. It would be foolhardy in the extreme if, while pivoting away, we failed to recognise that we need a backstop of energy security. Deputy O'Gorman, who performed very well in a previous Government, knows that in November 2023 there was recognition that we had to have an energy security component in place for the future. It was accepted at that stage and we are building on that. I refer to Energy Security in Ireland to 2030. All sides of the House are fully in agreement that fossil fuels are damaging and bad and that we have got to wean ourselves off them quickly. We are working very hard to capture renewable energy, whether wind or solar, and we are doing it in a plan-led and strategic way so that we can, from climate change and emissions perspectives, rid ourselves of fossil fuels while also putting in place a means of controlling our own energy mix into the future. The State will control it and it will be within our own ambit, so that we will not be dependent on regimes outside the normal zones of Europe.

The time permitted for this debate having expired, I am required to put the following question in accordance with an order of the Dáil of this day: "That in respect of each of the sections undisposed of, the section is hereby agreed to in Committee, the Title is hereby agreed to in Committee, the Bill is accordingly reported to the House without amendment, Fourth Stage is hereby completed and the Bill is hereby passed."

The Bill will now be sent to the Seanad.