Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I feel that I have to respond to this accusation that I ignored the question of the future and the reliance that the State will have, after 2030, on some level of usage of gas. I have only used the Minister of State's argument with him. He says that by 2030, we will have 70% of our energy from renewables. Where does the other 30% come from? At present, we import 50% of our gas needs. If, by 2030, we only have to import 30%, is that not an improvement? Here comes the geopolitical argument. I have heard what Senators McDowell and O'Reilly said, what the Minister of State intimated, and what has been said many times in these discussions about Putin, Russia, insecurity and so on.

Most of our imports come from the North Sea. That could and should continue the case if we have to rely on imports for a short period. The Minister of State's logic is that this source will be very insecure for us, that they are not reliable sources and that we would be far better off relying on a combination of Exxon Mobil and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation which have been granted the licence referred to by Deputy Eamon Ryan. Ireland has just celebrated, or marked, the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests that were dominated by tyranny, abuse, human rights abuses and the suppression, jailing and murder of people by the Chinese state. What makes them nicer guys than President Putin? What makes him such a nice guy that one of the companies that continually lobbies this House, Petrel Resources, does deals with Gazprom in Crimea? I find the entire issue of energy security contradictory, but the fundamental point is that there will be no such security on a planet that will overheat by more than 2° C. That is not disputable. It is the science. If one accepts the science of climate catastrophe and emergency, it is indisputable. Energy security is being used in a spurious way in the geopolitical argument. I do not accept it whatsoever, no matter how many times the Government tries to frame it this way or that way.

There is another obvious argument in that there is no legal obligation on any company that receives an exploration or drilling licence from the Department to sell back to the State whatever it finds. Ireland's natural resources are not ours in that regard. Long ago, during the Shell to Sea campaign, our natural resources were sold and that continues to be the case. I would like to see our natural resources remain in the ground. Reference was made to the possibility of getting 55% tax back on this resource and how that would be great to fund climate change initiatives. That, however, is contradictory. Taking them out of the ground, burning more carbon and then using the tax generated to build an extra bicycle lane or put another electric bus on the streets of Galway is just crazy. That is not doing politics in the correct way.

I put it to the Minister of State that we will continue to fight. We are seeking legal advice on the issue of a money message. People will be outside Leinster House in half an hour to call on the Government to keep fossil fuels in the ground and not to kill the Bill. The movement is big. It involves tens of thousands of schoolchildren and tens of thousands of citizens both here and across the globe. There is no Tricolour flying out of the carbon emitted from the fuel extracted off the Kerry or Donegal coastline. It does not recognise boundaries. It is an atmosphere we share globally as a human race and we need to take responsibility to do something about it. The Minister of State could be famous and a leader in that regard. Ireland is one of five countries that have acknowledged that we need to ban the exploration of fossil fuels. It could be the making of the Minister of State's political endeavours to do something decent for the globe. We are going to keep fighting, legally and outside with the movement, every which way. I thank all of the Deputies who are on side with us on this issue.