Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When the Tánaiste said he was against the Shannon liquefied natural gas, LNG, project, he was nearly the cause of a car accident. I say this because a number of Fine Gael Deputies and councillors headed to the land bank in Tarbert to stand there and to say that they were in support of it. Do his Deputies and councillors have that little influence over him, or does he pay so little heed to them that he ignores them as he is ignoring the people of north Kerry, south Kerry, east Kerry and west Kerry, who desperately want the Shannon LNG project to go ahead?

The events over the last number of weeks have shown us that now more than ever we should be trying to produce energy ourselves. We should be trying to produce gas ourselves and trying to make ourselves as self-sufficient as we can possibly be. As the Tánaiste knows, in 2019, natural gas made up 41% of the total of the country’s heat requirements. Last year, 42% of the country’s electricity was generated through gas-fired plants. Some 73% of Ireland’s natural gas is imported from the UK. While Ireland does not rely on Russia for gas or oil, the situation remains volatile and subject to upward pressures for as long as the conflict continues.

All we have seen from the Government is it telling us we should use more and more electricity and, at the same time, it is doing less and less about producing it. It shut Bord na Móna, it is telling people they cannot go to the bog to save their own turf and that it does not want them to cut timber, and it is pandering to the green agenda continuously. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have sold their souls to the Green Party. They stand for absolutely nothing now and the people are no longer saying it is only the Green Party. They are saying Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are only dancing to the Green Party tune. An LNG plant would provide security during a transition period, and once the time comes to move to away from natural gas, the terminal could be repurposed. Instead, the Government is going along with this agenda, as I outlined.

The Tánaiste stands in the Chamber and treats people with contempt, because he is saying nothing of any meaning to them. He answered Deputy McDonald earlier and said nothing in response to a sound question. I am going to ask him a straight question. Is he going to come in here in the month of May, and are his backbenchers going to come in here in the month of May, and seriously tell the people the Government is going to impose further carbon taxes on them, which will further increase the cost of their oil, further increase the cost of their electricity and make it harder for them to make ends meet and to clothe their children, send them to school, heat their homes and travel to and from work? Is the Tánaiste just going to deny them the right to live, quite simply because he is following the green agenda, because he sold his soul to the Green Party to become Tánaiste and to become Taoiseach? It is a case of anything for power; power at all costs.

See this speech in context