Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are dealing with rushed legislation on an issue we all, to a degree, saw coming down the tracks. Long before we entered into the disaster of the war in Ukraine, we had been speaking about whether we had difficulties with energy security. We knew that there was the possibility of blackouts and wondered whether they could be avoided. There was also the issue as to whether anyone could make a promise and whether anything that a Minister or Minister of State said was or was not a promise in ensuring that we could keep the lights on. We all know that there has been a failure to deal with the issue of data centres. That is not even from the point of view of stopping and saying that we cannot have them but from the fact that we have once again not dealt with that element of planning.

My colleagues have dealt with the issues on which we will table amendments. They will deal specifically with the fact that if we are talking about increased generation capacity, we very much need to put an emphasis on renewables. I probably did not think that I would be saying that to a Green Party Minister of State but that is the work that we need to do. We are all aware of the work that needs to be done on a wider scale on offshore wind, in particular, and I have heard it said more than once in this particular august auditorium that we can be an absolute powerhouse in that respect. We can be a superpower in wind energy and that is the place that we have to put ourselves.

No member will give out about changes to the PSO levy if we can put money back into people’s pockets. Our party has said more than once that people are really struggling at this point in time. We need to do what we can while accepting that we cannot do everything to mitigate the worst aspects of this, which people are dealing with.

We are talking about some specifics in the borrowing capacities of EirGrid and of Bord na Móna. People will not have difficulties with those specifics once we can see that the pieces of work that they will do with these renewed or updated capacities are what we require to provide a holistic solution to what we need.

Previous speakers said that we need to see the results of the review on energy security. That is completely necessary. We are dealing with this emergency legislation that should have been dealt with at a far earlier stage. We should have got the fundamentals correct but we are now in the place that we are in and we need to ensure we are punching in the correct direction.

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