Professor Barry McMullin:

They were excellent questions. As for ruling out all new fossil fuel infrastructure, I would argue for a more nuanced view. There can be legitimate cases for some further development of fossil fuel infrastructure in the short term, particularly in respect of some potentially gas-fired electricity generation and natural gas storage. When I say "gas", for the moment I am talking about natural gas. Natural gas storage development also provides diversity in supply and some insurance hedging against disruption of natural gas supply. That is in preference, in my view, to LNG terminals, particularly because natural gas storage facilities carry with them the possibility for migration to hydrogen storage. Rather than something that is basically a road leading nowhere, investing in something we would have to abandon, namely, LNG import infrastructure, natural gas storage infrastructure can migrate to hydrogen storage in general.

I am not ruling out any investment in fossil fuel infrastructure but, at the current time, pending the review of energy security that the Deputy initiated, and most especially pending the carbon budget programme for the next 15 years, we really cannot make any informed judgment about particular fossil fuel infrastructural developments. We need to prioritise getting those matters in place and, in the meantime, not making things worse or prejudicing the sorts of actions we may need in the light of the carbon budget constraints.

As to why I am focusing specifically on not expanding energy use from data centres rather than other potential industry developments that would involve large additional energy use, in recent years they have contributed disproportionately to Ireland's overall total energy use. In the projections to 2030, this is even more stark. I fully agree with the Deputy that in an ideal world, one would not bluntly look at one particular sector of large energy use and would have something more sophisticated than that, but it is characteristic of emergency-type situations that we sometimes have to be more pragmatic than that. This large sector is clearly identifiable as a distinct sector and it is growing at a completely disproportionate rate. It is growing energy use in the national territory at a rate much greater than that of any other identifiable sector. it is amenable to targeted action, because it is identifiable and distinct, and it can be prioritised because, scale wise, it is very large. In an ideal world, there are many things we would do differently but, to be pragmatic about it, in regard to managing the growth and total energy use, targeting the data centre sector in particular is entirely defensible.

The Deputy asked about LNG and whether, if methane leakage is associated with fracked natural gas expansion and-or the processing of gas into liquid form and the processing back to gaseous form, that is, local degasification, we should simply say the upstream methane outside the national territory is someone else's problem, since it would be off the national inventory. He went on to argue our energy security trumps that. I can see where he is coming from. The existing structure of territorial emissions accounting has problems; it is not ideal. I do not think anyone working in this area would advocate an exclusive focus on territorial accounting but it forms the basis for the multilateral co-ordination under the Paris Agreement, so it is very important. That said, we all have an obligation not to make things more difficult for other parties to the Paris Agreement if we can help it. Choosing to pursue a path we know will present more difficult challenges for other parties to the agreement is not really a great way of trying to encourage multilateral co-ordination and co-operation. Ireland is a small player, globally. We are completely dependent on our ability to persuade other, much larger parties to take much stronger action, but we have to be very careful-----