Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Chairman bringing me in as well. I am having Internet issues as well so if I go, it is the likely cause.

On the back of the Conference of Parties, COP, I welcome the Minister signing Ireland to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, as it is a really important step for the country to take. There is the question of how that follows through in implementation at home and the move towards effectively banning liquefied natural gas terminals. We have the statement from the Government on policy but it is really important to send a message we are banning it. We know the EU has said there is no legal impediment to us doing that.

My second point relates to the Climate Action Plan, where chapter 19 deals with international climate policy. I wonder why Ireland has not made any public statements around the Energy Charter Treaty. I know there is an ongoing modernisation process at an EU level but other countries, such as France and Spain, have said this is beyond reform. Members of the public are left on the hook for stranded assets for oil and gas. Given the EU, in its modernisation process, is looking at excluding the EU and intra-EU disputes from the terms of the treaty, how does it play into our international climate justice obligations if we then allow EU companies to go into the oil and gas-rich global south and have the protections of the Energy Charter Treaty, investor-state dispute settlement and all of that? I note the EU modernisation process has not removed article 16, which is the supremacy clause, so the Paris Agreement is not at the same standing as the terms of the Energy Charter Treaty in the legal sense.

Will we now move to join France and Spain in leaving the Energy Charter Treaty? With our commitment to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, will we follow through with the implementation of a full LNG ban?