Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Rural Independent Group has identified a problem but, unfortunately, it has looked in exactly the wrong place for the solution. We have an energy security crisis and the Government has significantly contributed to it. We have an energy cost crisis and the Government has significantly contributed to it. The Rural Independent Group suggests, however, that the answer is new fossil fuel infrastructure, which would be hugely damaging to the environment and would do little for energy security, particularly considering the locking in of such fossil fuel use. We are looking at countries spending billions of euro to buy themselves out of the type of contracts that would be needed if this motion were to succeed. Such infrastructure would last 30 or 40 years. That would take us well past 2050 and any prospect of delivering on emissions reduction targets and, whatever it might do for energy security, it would do absolutely nothing for energy costs. Do we get Corrib gas cheaper than we get Qatari or British gas? No, we do not. Sinn Féin therefore does not support this motion.

We do not support the Government's countermotion either because there is absolutely zero acknowledgement in it of the Government's role in sleepwalking the State into this energy security and energy cost crisis. There is no mention of data centre policy. As recently as yesterday, we had reports that the energy generation being procured by the State to prevent power outages in winter 2023 will cover only about 60% of the generation gap that might arise. Why? It is largely because of data centres. There is no mention that we have become more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels in recent years thanks to a complete failure of policy. There is no mention of the Government's failure, along with the ESB and the CRU, to deliver on committed capacity. Capacity is committed and there is failure to deliver on it. There is no mention of the failure to deliver on our offshore wind potential. If the Government will not take Sinn Féin's advice as to what needs to be done, there is an article practically every week in the Business Postfrom industry leaders telling the Government what needs to be done. There is no mention of the failure to deliver microgeneration in schools, farms or community centres, or anywhere else for that matter, at scale. There is no mention of the failure to adequately support people and to ensure a just and fair transition. Every scheme the Government comes up with fails the equity test and the just transition test.

What is in the Government's countermotion? There is mention of a framework with 31 responses. That will be cold comfort to anybody faced with the reality of runaway fuel and energy costs.

The energy security review needs to be urgently concluded and published. That should have been done already. The Government needs to set out a comprehensive and coherent plan to deliver energy security, with all options on the table. It must deliver a just transition and the most rapid and fair transition to a net-zero energy system. We need to accelerate the delivery of offshore wind energy by providing the funding and resources needed to agencies such as An Bord Pleanála to ensure that long planning delays are avoided. We need to establish a cross-government, high-level task force to bring forward recommendations on how to lower the price of renewable energy here because it is not just fossil fuel energy but also renewable energy that is too expensive in Ireland. We need to draft and publish a national strategy on green energy. In the first instance, the most important thing the Government needs to do to protect consumers is to introduce an emergency budget that provides targeted measures to help households struggling to meet increasing energy costs. This Government and previous ones have pursued failed policies that have brought us to the brink. People know what amber alerts are now because they are part of the public conversation. That is an absolute failure of Government policy to match energy demand with energy supply. It is totally within the gift of the Government to deliver on that, and it needs to do so.

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