Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ministers for giving us the opportunity to debate this matter today. The Social Democrats will be supporting this proposal. This is a long overdue measure being brought in to deal with the decommissioned Kinsale gas field. Kinsale is the start of the Wild Atlantic Way and is situated on a section of coast that is valued for its natural beauty and its role as a tourism amenity. In the process of decommissioning, it will be essential that the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, is fully resourced with staff and is given sufficient time to ensure that all environmental protections are afforded to this very special area of our country. With my Cork South-West colleague, Deputy Cairns, I am eager to ensure the agency is properly resourced. I ask the Minister to make sure that is the case. There must also be engagement with local communities and any decisions must be made in a very transparent way in consultation with those same communities.

We are here today talking about the issue of cleaning up after works and operations which have been going on for decades and after decades of exploitation of our natural marine resources. It is important that we do so and that we do so in an environmentally friendly way. However, it is also important that we look at what has happened to date and learn from the mistakes at the past. We must look at our record and at how we are managing these systems now so that, as Deputy Matthews said, the Minister standing here in 20 or 30 years' time will be able to look back and say that we did the right thing.

Most people think of our atmosphere as being at the front line of climate change when it is really our marine waters that are at the coalface of our warming planet. The capacity of our waters to absorb carbon dioxide is dwindling and so too are our chances of recovering our most vast and important lifeline. Our seas and oceans are under tremendous pressure from the combined impacts of climate change, acidification, shipping, economic exploitation and fossil fuel exploration. Since Ireland was declared a dolphin sanctuary in 1991, cetacean strandings have increased, including an increase of 350% over the past ten years. The effects of offshore oil and gas exploration practices are increasingly being linked to these events, while marine biodiversity continues to come under great pressures.

We saw recently the public outcry when Fungie disappeared and we realised how much we valued one particular individual animal. We should be protecting thousands of our whales and dolphins and ensuring that we enhance and recognise how fragile our relationship is with nature and how we need to ensure that we change course in how we deal with our marine resources.

Unfortunately, instead of changing course the Government is, in fact, working in two opposing directions. Despite the banning of fracking in Ireland there has been no movement by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications to ban liquefied natural gases, LNGs, and related infrastructure, with no ban in sight on the importation of fracked gas. Despite the ban on future oil and gas exploration, there have been no attempts by the Minister to dismantle a liberal licensing and tax regime which continues to support the fossil fuel industry and those with existing exploratory licences. The honouring of existing licences will enable companies to proceed with projects around areas like Barryroe, Corrib and other fields for many years. Furthermore, Ireland continues to hold a very sympathetic licensing regime of fast-tracked environmental assessments, lengthy licensing terms, and one of the lowest tax-take regimes in the world with Government subsidies amounting to the tune of €4 billion. We need a ban on licensing and to remove the current tax breaks and subsidies as well as resourcing and enforcing the EPA to carry out full environmental impact assessments until we completely sever our ties with the fossil fuel industry.

The conversation also needs to shift away from the idea that gas is a transition fuel, a sort of less-corrupted younger brother to its fossil fuel relative. We need to amputate the Government’s special relationship with the oil and gas sector and to decommission not only failed exploration projects but also excessive lobbying by the industry which has embedded itself culturally at the centre of Government decision-making for many years. We need to end the narrative that gas and oil companies provide us with energy security as we transition to a low-carbon economy and end our support of free-trade mechanisms such as the investor court system that grants extrajudicial status to energy companies most likely to use this mechanism, which further erodes the State’s ability to legislate for climate action and will essentially just tie the Government's hands.

We are still waiting for legislation on the designation and protection of marine protected areas, MPAs, and a revised management plan for carrying this out. Just think, Ireland has one of the largest marine areas in the EU by proportion of its size and despite this considerable marine territory Ireland has only 2.33% of its marine extent covered by MPAs, which is the second lowest coverage in the EU.

What we need to do is rather than focusing on some sort of green-washing process, we need to be realistic in what we are doing and to ensure that we are on course to preserve and protect our marine waters in pursuit of climate action and this needs to be a focus of Government. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

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