Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for bringing forward this motion, which I support. I do not necessarily agree with the Minister on many points but I am willing to accept he sincerely holds those viewpoints and thank him for coming into the Dáil to debate this and other issues, because many Ministers do not. They all should do but they do not. It is important we debate. I have debated some of these issues with the Minister before.

There are obviously many good ideas in this motion for how we can increase energy supply in the short term. The Government's response, and indeed Sinn Féin's response, to the humongous rise in energy costs is a very short-term approach, whether it is a price cap to run until the spring of next year or universal credits that will end after the same period. However, I have not heard anybody address how we are going to meet the energy demands of this State in the medium to long term. I greatly look forward, as I am sure the Minister does, to the offshore wind energy of the Atlantic being harnessed but that technology is not there yet. Nobody is suggesting we are going to do that in the short term. We can have offshore wind farms off the east coast of Ireland but nobody is suggesting we will be turning wind energy into hydrogen in the short term anywhere in Ireland. How then are we going to meet those demands?

One of the first acts of this State was to guarantee energy security. I am sure the Minister is keenly aware of the project that was Ardnacrusha. In the 1980s, the State boldly moved forward and built a coal power plant. Of course, we now know nobody wants to continue with that into the long term but it was an attempt to meet the demands of this State. I have heard nobody explain how we are going to meet the demands now. I have heard people ruling out stuff. The Minister has ruled out an LNG base. Like him, I do not want to see fracked gas coming to Ireland but we must have gas storage, especially if our only source of energy when the wind is not blowing is going to be gas power. The gas we are not getting on boats is going to have to come through the United Kingdom, which has no requirement to treat us equally in the event of a shortage since it left the EU. I have heard the Minister rule out nuclear. The last time he was in government, he brought nuclear. I accept nuclear is not cheap but there is no cheap energy source available to us now. It is true that wind energy is cheap but it is only available to us when the wind is blowing. How are we going to fuel our industries, hospitals and schools? Indeed, how are we going to fuel this Parliament, for what it is worth to fuel it or keeping the lights on in? It is not worth keeping the lights on here if we cannot tell the Irish people how we are going to provide energy. If the first men and women who sat in this Dáil after Irish independence could clearly tell people how they were going to power the State and we cannot then we do not deserve to keep the lights on in here. I am asking the Minister to tell us how we will in the medium to long term. I congratulate the Regional Group on its proposals but they are a stopgap, by their nature. In the longer term, how will we fuel this State? Some of the Minister's colleagues are happy to import nuclear energy but not happy at all to discuss that we would generate our own and have a degree of self-sufficiency and energy security. I am not a proponent of nuclear energy but we must be realistic and examine all the options available to us.

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