Luke Ming Flanagan: We will run out of oil, plan now
Luke Ming Flanagan, MEP, addressed the need to move away from fossil fuels and urged Ireland to prioritise self-sufficiency in food and energy. He used a local anaerobic digestion example and criticised short-term thinking that ignores looming resource limits.
Main argument
Luke Ming Flanagan argues that dependence on fossil fuels is unsustainable and that society must prepare for a future when oil is no longer available. He warns that disruption need not come from a single unpredictable actor and stresses that planning is overdue.
Local example of solutions
Flanagan recalls his visit to the Camp Hill community anaerobic digestion facility near Kilkenny and Tipperary. He describes how waste was converted into digestate and local energy, and laments regulatory and market barriers that forced excess gas to be burned off instead of being used or sold.
Food security and resources
Referencing Ireland's agricultural output, Flanagan challenges the notion of exporting food before ensuring domestic supply. He calls for planting legumes, better use of on-farm resources and policies to enable communities to use bioenergy and fertiliser produced locally.
Policy call and consequence
Flanagan concludes with a blunt policy message: Ireland must plan now for the end of cheap oil and put feeding the nation first. His speech questions current priorities and urges pragmatic, local solutions to energy and food security.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Thank you very much. We have known for a long time now, anyone who wants to know, or anyone who follows the science, that we will have to move to a different system where we don't depend on fossil fuels. And while, I'll say it again, Mr Trump is a lunatic, sometimes lunatics wake you up to the reality of what's coming, because this is what it will look like in the future. We won't need a lunatic like Donald Trump to cut off our oil supply, we will run out of it. So we've known this for a long time and we should have planned for it. When I got elected as a county councillor, 24 years ago, within six months of getting elected, I made my way to Camp Hill community, a place down in Kilkenny on the Tipperary border, to have a look at an anaerobic digestion facility. I have to say I was excited leaving it. I was excited about the fact that instead of having what would have been up until then considered a waste material, potentially causing problems, it got turned into a digestate, which was taken away again by the farmers who could use it as fertiliser, and the community there could use the energy. Well, whatever they could use, they had to burn the rest off into the atmosphere because they weren't allowed to sell it anywhere else. And over the years I've watched this situation and I've hoped, particularly in Ireland as the previous speaker has said, we produce a lot of shit in Ireland and we could make good use of it. So the question is, why don't we? I hear the president of the Irish Farmers Association talk about feeding the world and that is an honourable objective, but as someone who comes from a country that suffered from starvation while food was exported in the 1840s and 50s, I think we should learn from that. And I'd like Ireland to be able to feed itself first. We can't produce enough of about 80% of the different types of food we eat. And if we had a crisis in the morning, we're not going to be able to live on milk crumb and on meat. We will need other things. So we need, instead of ignoring what's coming down the line like we did for the last 30 years, we need to plan, we need to look at planting legumes and we need to look at making use of the resources that we have. Because the reality is, when Trump goes away, eventually so will the oil and we need another plan anyway. And to me, I think instead of talking about feeding the world before you can feed yourself, I'd say cop on. Thank you.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
