Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his opening statement. I will pick up on some of the points raised by Deputy Murphy. I was very surprised to hear this narrative that we will have lots of energy down the line and so we need to facilitate large energy users now. It seems to be very much a cart before the horse situation. Surely if we are in a situation where we were to have a large amount of renewable energy then at that point we could look to how it might be used. We have interconnectors and when we look to this as a global issue, we are trying to ensure and support the use of renewable energy everywhere. I imagine there may also be the option, if Ireland does move to a point of having such large amounts of renewable energy, for us to look at exporting renewable energy. I do not believe we will have to use it at home per se.

The other issue is that it seems to be inconsistent with some of the logic we heard, for example, around what was to my mind the unfathomable decision to include provision for the fast-tracking of liquefied natural gas terminals and the storage of gas. The statistics we have at the moment show the energy demand from data centres has outpaced the increase in renewables. At a very basic level, surely we should not be increasing demand beyond what we have onstream in terms of renewable increase and renewable capacity. Bearing in mind those reports-----