Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On gas supplies, I had my Department look at this for me the other day. Ireland does not use very much Russian gas. Pretty much half our gas comes from our own supplies in the Corrib gas field and the other half comes from Britain. Most of that either comes from Britain, Norway or Qatar. The gas comes from Qatar on ships to LNG terminals in Britain and then comes across the pipelines into Ireland. Thus, while we do not have an LNG terminal, we use LNG. It just comes in from Britain rather than coming into one of our ports. While any potential reduction or cut off in Russian gas would not directly hit supplies here, there would of course be a knock-on effect because if the supply goes down globally, the price will go up globally.

On LNG, I understand there is a planning application in from a private company, New Fortress Energy, to build an LNG terminal in north Kerry. The Government is not supporting that project because we believe the future is in renewable energy and hydrogen but we are not going to block it either. There is a planning process and if the company gets planning permission and can finance its project then it will be able to proceed. It is not the case the Government is blocking it but we have decided not to support it actively because we do not think long-term 30- or 40-year investments in fossil fuels of this nature make sense. The same thing applies to exploration. There are already many existing licences and those licences stand. People can use them. If more gas is discovered as a consequence of exploration on foot of those licences that gas will be brought ashore. We do not think it makes sense to issue new licences that would not be acted on for decades, perhaps, because we do not want to be taking that gas out in 30 or 40 years' time when we will have the alternative sources of energy we aim to have.

On the general issue of fuel prices and the cost of living, everyone in Government appreciates the cost of living is rising and that we are seeing levels of inflation at 5% and 6%, which we have not seen in 20 years. We used to see them a lot but we have not for about 20 years and that is creating a real squeeze. It is really affecting family budgets, creating a real squeeze for many families, increasing business costs and also having a significant impact on people on low incomes who, if they have to choose to spend more on petrol, diesel or energy, then have to choose to spend less on things like groceries, for example. That has a real impact. That is why I was an early advocate, as far back as last June, of ensuring we had a welfare, pensions and tax package in the last budget. The best way to help people with the cost of living is to increase their incomes, increase their take-home pay and give them the discretion as to how they spend their money. That is why I signed off on that increase in the minimum wage. It is why pay is being increased in the public service. It is why we had a welfare, pensions and tax package which many people actually opposed at the time. We appreciate we need to do more. One part of that is the energy credit that is being worked on at the moment.

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