Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We consider a whole variety of different options and will still consider various options. Cork Harbour in particular has some real strategic advantages when it comes to a whole variety of different energy infrastructure. One of the storage options has always been looking at the likes of the Kinsale gas field, or the Ballycotton or Seven Heads fields as there is a network of fields there, to see whether they could have gas storage capability. One of the downsides of that is one requires a lot of cushion gas and that might affect the economics. Regarding the use of the pipeline from those fields back to the shore at the Inch terminal, we have to consider the age of the pipeline and the alternatives. A vessel of the sort the Deputy mentioned, if it were to be moored, I would expect to be moored closer and probably somewhere like Aghada, some part of Whitegate or a similar place where the original gas came ashore. One would not necessarily berth a ship that far out and the pipeline for that purpose would not make sense. We can look at all those options when it comes to the consultation on the energy security paper published yesterday but the pipeline now and the terminal at sea have been decommissioned and, therefore, I do not believe they will have a role in this process.

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