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

I thank the Commissioner for attending and for her presentation. Has she seen a study produced by InfluenceMap in the past few weeks that shows the ramping up of the production of shale gas and fracked gas in the US to replace Russian gas? It is said its extent is like peace-washing in that it is like using the war to ramp up the extraction to a very extreme degree. Huge profits are being made by the fossil fuel industry across the US on the back of this. Has the Commissioner seen the study, and what is her view on it?

Does the Commissioner genuinely believe our expansion of LNG and new gas projects is sustainable or in any way in line with the climate goals given that the International Energy Agency and others have explicitly said to us that we must not have any new fossil fuel infrastructure if we are to reach our Paris targets? Our reaching of these seems to be increasingly distant.

My next question is on the energy market itself. I do not expect the Commissioner to be familiar with our history but, about 20 years ago before we deregulated the market, we had a national company, the Electricity Supply Board, ESB, which supplied all our electricity, and we had the cheapest electricity for the consumer in the whole EU. Our electricity prices are now among the dearest. I interviewed representatives of the ESB during the week and they explained to me that although the company does not profit vastly from the huge increases in energy prices – many companies do, not only in Ireland but also across the board – it is subject to international energy price mechanisms. Is it not time for the Commissioner and the EU in general to press for a review of how our energy is priced on the global market and do away with the extraordinary and obscene profiteering that is happening at the same time that ordinary people are driven into energy crises?