Darragh O'Brien: Defends State-Led Strategic Gas Reserve

Just to restate what the Count Corlew has said, I have nothing to do with whether amendments are ruled in or out of order, that's not. Deputy Whitmore in particular made that case, Deputy Cronin, less so, but that's a matter for the Count Corlew's office and completely independent of me. Can we just put this in context, why we're here? Back in 2025, in March actually of last year, the government approved the development of a state-led strategic gas reserve, and that is critical to securing our energy security as we continue that transition to indigenous clean renewable energy, which we're doing. And this is not instead of, and that's I think we see the first four or five months of this year, about 50% of our electricity generated through renewable sources, 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 report, that genuinely colleagues cannot be ignored. And that was again approved by the previous government that Deputy O'Gorman was a member of back in November 2023. It is consistent with our climate plan, because that speaks to energy security, and it is a transitional measure, reducing the risk of stranded fossil fuel assets, and it is for emergency use only, and does not support increased gas demand. The approval of this approach does represent a culmination of extensive independent research, analysis and engagement, all of which has been published, four weeks of pre-legislative scrutiny done at committee, and a good job was there, was done there. This reserve will be in the form as you know of a floating storage and regasification unit, which will be owned on behalf of the state by the system operator Gas Networks Ireland, and GNI is written into the legislation, the location of the reserve is written into the legislation, so it is not about commercialisation of additional or of LNG in the Irish mix, it certainly isn't. And with this legislation in particular, this is one of two, provides the process for the direct application to myself as Minister for Climate, Energy and Environment for the development consent, which specified accelerated timelines for each stage of this bespoke consenting process. Now why is that the case? Because this is absolutely urgent, because there's a critical risk that's 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, the remainder is imported, and rightly so, if God forbid something was to happen to the imported gas that we receive, whilst we're still using gas within our energy mix, we would have serious, serious difficulties here, not just from our economic perspective, but from a societal perspective as well. So we are right now dependent on interconnection, we're building further interconnectors on the electricity side, we're building Celtic right now at the moment, we're investing heavily in our grid, renewables are accelerating, just today I was at the Energy Storage Ireland National Conference, we're number three on energy storage, many people have referred to battery storage and long duration battery storage, and yet we absolutely need to do more of that, we're actually third in the European Union at the moment, only to Germany and Italy, and after that Ireland, we've 1.3 gigawatts of installed long duration battery storage, with a major pipeline of projects to come through, specifically with these amendments and the grouping. This legislation deals with the consenting process, does not deal with the operation of it. The operation of it will be by way of separate legislation that will very specifically state, and again I state in the Record of the House, that this is state owned, state led, state managed, used in extremis, not to increase gas usage in this country whatsoever. It's a risk that's been identified, that cannot be ignored, that needs to be addressed, and we need to ameliorate that risk to our country as we continue to accelerate renewables, which we're doing. We've reached over 8 gigawatts of renewable capacity integrated into our grid, with a significant pipeline of projects, and offshore renewables as was mentioned, our focus is in getting them into development by the end of this decade. I don't control the planning process, we're expecting two decisions hopefully this year in that regard, I don't know whether they'll be objected to. And I have by the way engaged with environmental groups and the environmental pillar on their views in relation to this legislation. It is necessary, it is urgent, that's why we need a bespoke planning approach to this. That's what you'll see within the legislation. GNI are mentioned, the actual location of the site itself is mentioned specifically in the legislation. So this is not about building gas terminals all over the country, anything but. This is strategic, reserve, state owned, state led, that is required, and this legislation deals with the consenting process itself. So with that said, I can't accept the amendments that have been tabled by the deputies.