Paul Murphy: government green-lights fracked gas and data centres

Do you accept that since your return to office you have been effectively ripping up the Climate Act? You have been green-lighting limitless expansion of data centres and AI powered by fossil fuels. You gave out when you were in America about the demonisation of data centres. You have rescinded the government policy statement against fracked gas. I heard you earlier saying that we can't object to fracked gas coming in. You have approved a so-called state-led LNG storage terminal. You have welcomed the granting of planning permission for a fracked gas power plant as part of a commercial LNG terminal in Kerry. I make the point that the so-called state-led LNG terminal, which is supposed to be an emergency reserve, in fact, is to supply 95% of domestic gas usage with filthy US fracked gas, the most polluting fossil fuel on earth that activists have fought so hard to ban, only for you to try and smuggle it in the back door with a dirty deal with Trump. How can you justify imposing the cost of this onto ordinary people? What will be the impact? How much will they have to pay for this rip-off fracked gas and LNG terminals? Mr. Deputy, Deputy, Deputy Batch? Deputy Deputy Batch谢 It's not moving and the goalposts aren't shifting, it's actually regulated for the existing scheme now. The programme for government has identified the need for a more comprehensive bespoke scheme to deal with events of the kind of Storm Eeyore. Deputy Moynihan, I would agree fully in terms of the need, in terms of energy. The more fundamental issue is, the agenda is, by the way, for all deputies, is to get to 80% renewables, electricity generation, by 2030. That objective has not changed. I've said to Deputy Moynihan, Deputy Patrick, Deputy Murphy, and Deputy Boyd Barrett. The suggestion is that we've torn up the climate, but we haven't, or the Climate Act. It's a false assertion. And I do believe, though, that Deputy Moynihan's point is very valid. Because if I'm listening to others in the House, it's goodbye to the economy. Territory, essentially. Because I was, you know, when I go to the U.S. and other places, and you meet people like Hanley Energy, for example, whose technology is in every data centre in the world, and to employ 800 people, 400 in America and 400 here, but their technology is all about reducing energy, and doing it to level best to moderate energy output of data centres and so on. When you combine that with the AI revolution, and we've had an essential moratorium by the end of the last three or four years on data centres. Essentially, we've had. Now, if the deputies' opposites are suggesting we go another five years with a data centre moratorium, we have a real problem with our economy. And I think the deputies' opposites, Deputy Patrick, Murphy, and others, should start thinking very quickly now in terms of how they see the economy evolving, and dispense with all the soundbites and get down to the substance of what happens. Do we think we can just park ourselves to the side of the road while this massive, profound change is occurring in technology, and just think in five or six years' time we can pick it all up again? We will not be able to do that. No, we have a huge, through the chair, we have a huge challenge in terms of competitiveness. How do you match the AI revolution and the extraordinary energy it consumes with our challenges between now and 2030? Because the hope is that we do get, and those two auctions have been successfully done in terms of wind energy, to Deputy Brennan's point. Notwithstanding the change, we had to set up MARA in the last government. We had to set up a whole new infrastructure to deal with offshore wind energy and maritime planning. We've done that now. It needs to move fast. Two auctions have gone off the ground. I think there's a very good chance that they'll be there, hopefully in production, by 2030, 231. We don't need any objections to those offshore wind farms, because wind is the only option for Ireland in the context of the existential climate change that we face. But there will be a need for a transition fuel, and that transition fuel will be gas. And there's no point in pretending otherwise. It will be needed. And we need reality to come true. And when I say, you know, when I talk to people, you know, and I think the debate in here is just miles away from reality. There's no attempt at all to try and deal with the issues and the interdependent issues. And, yes, the challenges that come with it. But it's just demonized data centers. If you demonized data centers, every day-to-day usage that people use, their phones, their mobile phones, anything, comes to naught. I mean, that's the reality. It is fundamentally the reality. And in my view, you're fundamentally wrong in terms of what you're putting forward. Deputy, and again, the Deputy Brennan raised regulatory hurdles and so on. We're doing everything possible to get offshore wind through as quickly as we possibly can. And that will mean transposition more EU directives in terms of the, there is a clause within EU directive, which, when all else fails, is the overriding public interest clause, which should be invoked, in my view, in terms of offshore wind, because it's the most fundamental way this country can deal with climate, absolutely, and renewables. Solar, solar panels, solar is moving fast now in Ireland, and I think can progress even further. Battery storage, fair point, maybe, Deputy, for real, although in Bordnum 1 in the Midlands, there are some developments on that one has happened. Other countries are using battery storage. You take Texas, it's not all oil in Texas. They will use wind, they will use nuclear, they will use battery storage, and solar as well. They're going to use all of them. We're not as, we have, wind is our key ingredient. And the, I think, Deputy Batchik, again, when the Independent Planning Board on Bord Planola makes a decision, if the government even dared intervene in a decision that would suit you, and you would appreciate the outcome, you'd cry foul of government. I'm stunned today, twice now it's happened two or three times, that the Bord Planola decision in respect of North Kerry is referenced, and then very quickly conflated with, as if the government did it. That's the impression you're giving. That's the impression all of you have given. No, sorry, you're giving the impression that an independent Bord Planola made a decision, as if it was government policy. And that is a false assertion to confuse people, to cloud it, because all you want to do is make the assertion that the government is rowing back on climate. That's all you want to do. And you'd use any instrument to do that. And it's a fundamentally dishonest political position to adopt. You either agree with the independence of Bord Planola or you don't. And now I've been asked to intervene in Bord Planola. I've been asked to intervene now in Bord Planola by Deputy Batchik, I think. And this is what's wrong with the country. We don't accept the independent bodies that are established. We should. Because otherwise, would there be JRs, judicial reviews, and then we ask why we can't deliver infrastructure and get things moving in the country? It's because you're pandering all the time and you're not really interested in terms of economic development. And I agree with Deputy... Sorry.