Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I echo the concerns expressed by other members and the Chairman on the gate being left open on grey hydrogen, particularly as low-carbon hydrogen has not been defined yet. The fear is that the roll-out of our own green hydrogen, offshore wind and floating offshore wind will be delayed if we leave the door open to the development of grey hydrogen which would be sourced from fossil fuels. We have to stress those concerns. I also echo the Chairman's point about the importance of this committee feeding in to the proposals and strategy going forward.

My fear is that we are potentially leaving two gates open, the first one being to grey hydrogen and the second to the importation of fracked gas through LNG infrastructure, in general. In his opening statement, Mr. Regan referred to the importance of gas storage in the context of energy security. There certainly has to be a place for gas storage in terms of a backup energy supply but one would hope that in the Irish scenario that would be done using the existing interconnectors. I am fearful, not just in an Irish context but also in a European context, that this type of proposal and the encouragement of gas storage would potentially lead to the proliferation of LNG terminals. Ireland has made quite a strong statement with its resistance to future LNG terminals being built but it is important that such an approach is Europe wide.

At the end of his statement, Mr. Regan said that the proposals do not go as far as national policy envisages around the importation of fracked gas. I am concerned that this represents another opportunity for the fossil fuel industry to delay the inevitable. Mr. Regan referred to the definition of low-carbon energy or hydrogen energy coming forward in 2024 but we need to start getting these things defined now and proposals set out on moving away from fossil fuels all together.