Mr. Jerry McEvilly:

First, and this very much links in with the ongoing energy security review, so I will try not to go into too much detail here, there is no energy security without climate security. We are moving away from the stage where one can, with any degree of legitimacy, suggest the climate impacts will not be disastrous. Second, and this is referenced in the statement, Ireland has clear national, EU and international climate obligations. If new fossil fuel infrastructure is brought on stream, the first risk is locking in emissions, fundamentally preventing adherence with those climate obligations. The second risk is that, as new renewable storage, interconnection, demand reduction and energy efficiency is ramped up over the next three decades, there are very real risks such infrastructure will become stranded assets. They are the two main arguments with regard to this idea that additional fossil fuel infrastructure or supply would be a free lunch. I appreciate, in terms of immediate energy security concerns, that there are questions to be answered, which I do not want to dismiss, but it is also important to remember that any likely future fossil fuel infrastructure, even if we wanted it, would more than likely only be available in several years' time, so it would not respond to the immediate crisis.

No one in this committee needs any reminder of the extreme challenges caused by the increasing prices of fossil fuels. We need to ask ourselves if we want to commit to a guaranteed, expensive and volatile fuel in the long term, which will fundamentally impact upon households. Bringing it back to the proposed treaty, which I have mentioned, I fully appreciate that the development of a new global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty would inevitably be a long-term process. This would not be a treaty that flicks the switch overnight and suddenly prevents fossil fuels.