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

I thank everybody for coming along and giving their thoughts. In the submission from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, it spoke about significant community gain but what exactly does that mean? What communities is the Department speaking about? There are licences for legacy projects that should be first to be allowed go ahead. Will that be the case or is the Department talking about other new projects in the submission rather than these legacy projects? I am very interested to hear what the Department has to say about moving to a more State-led approach. When might that happen? Will it happen on time or will we end up in a position where the developers will lead the development or renewable energy when they choose to invest in something? How will the State ensure something happens if a developer decides not to invest in it? Our aim for 2030 is very ambitious, given where we are coming from.

In the submission from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, it speaks about the Shannon Estuary economic task force and the role it will play in delivering renewables. We and the Government parties have a concern that liquefied natural gas planning permission might be awarded. Even the Chairman's party has put a Bill forward to stop this happening in the future. How would it affect plans for the Shannon Estuary economic task force if the Shannon liquefied natural gas planning application was approved by An Bord Pleanála.

My final question is on the EU taxonomy, as it flies in the face of everything we heard from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that we would even consider relying on fossil fuels and nuclear power in future given how frightening the report was. What I really want to get at is the impact of the war on Ukraine and whether it will hurt our climate targets? Will it allow for massive importation of liquefied natural gas from the US? I read an article in The Washington Post about such gas flowing from the US when it previously could not export it. Most of that is coming to Europe. How does that look for us?