Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As it happens, we are not as exposed. Some countries would say it is well for Ireland because it can push for a seven-sanctions package that includes gas because Ireland is not reliant on gas for heating systems through the winter and does not have the type of climate those countries have. However, consider Poland, which is advocating for it. It is not sourcing Russian gas any longer and it is adjusting, which will be very difficult for it. However, it has a strength of feeling that it is necessary.

This is about energy solidarity across the European Union and about changing how the supply chains work. Obviously, it is about doing a lot more shipping to compensate for pipeline gas and oil that may not be coming into the EU. I note the European Union is now importing more energy from the US than from Russia for the first time. That changed this week or in the past week or so. That trend is likely to continue. However, there are no easy answers here. I do not want to pretend that there is some type of easy alternative to Russian gas. There are alternatives but putting them in place will take time and is not easy. I believe we will see an awful lot more liquified natural gas, LNG, infrastructure being built in the European Union as well, and for good reason in terms of energy security for gas. We will see an acceleration of investments in renewables. The European Commission has signalled that it wants to facilitate that in respect of permitting systems and fast-tracking the processes there.

This is a huge opportunity for Ireland. Our offshore energy resource is almost limitless, in truth, given the scale of the resource we have in wind and wave, and particularly wind. It is a question of how we harness that, the time it takes to do it and the interconnection that we have with the rest of the European Union to be able to sell it into the European grid, whether that is through hydrogen or interconnectors. However, they are medium-term things and they certainly will not be in place for next winter. That is why the question of sourcing gas and where it comes from will continue to be a big issue moving into the autumn.

On the hybrid threats, there is a centre of excellence on cybersecurity in Tallinn in Estonia. That is predominantly a NATO-led project, but there are non-NATO countries also represented there. The hybrid threats centre of excellence is in Helsinki. Again, a lot of NATO countries are part of that, but there are some non-NATO countries too. Like with many things linked to defence and security, often the benchmark or the international standard is a NATO standard, but that does not mean that other countries do not participate in or are not involved in benefitting from the knowledge and experience that are there. Wearing my defence hat, the training standards, equipment standards and so forth that we aim at, whether it is our ships and how they operate or our armoured vehicles or our firepower, weaponry and so forth, are generally NATO standards, so we are interoperable with other EU countries if we choose to partner with them on peacekeeping missions or whatever. It does not mean we are joining NATO. We are not joining NATO. It means that is the benchmark in the European Union for military standards of equipment and training and, therefore, for us to be consistent with what every other country is doing, we normally have to be consistent with NATO standards.

That is why there is a NATO presence in some of these centres of excellence. It is a very useful presence from our perspective in terms of improving our skill sets. We have to be confident enough to talk about that. Just because one partners and co-operates with NATO does not necessarily mean there is some type of plot to join NATO. That is not a terrible thing anyway. Other countries are choosing to join NATO. I am not proposing that we join NATO. What I am saying is that we should be partnering with other EU countries and groups of countries, and sometimes NATO too, to ensure we have standards of equipment, training and operation that allow us to be interoperable with other EU countries. Both of those centres of excellence are good examples of that.