Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have one specific question to which I hope the Minister will respond. I want a categorical commitment from the Minister that electricity supply to homes around this country will not be cut if there is a tightening of supply this winter. We have a perverse situation because of the fear that has been instilled in people. Older people are forking out €1,800 to buy back-up diesel generators in case their electricity supply is switched off. The Government and the CRU are causing this panic, particularly among older people and those who are even more vulnerable - people with medical appliances such as those used for dialysis. The reality is that if supplies are cut this winter, it is to secure supplies for high users of electricity. This is immoral and we need a categorical commitment here this evening that this will not happen.

I have made my views known in this House regarding speculative data centres ad nauseumand I will not go into the subject tonight but I will revisit the issue of data centres and the opportunity they can now provide. Let me make it crystal clear. If electricity supply is cut to homes and families around this country this winter, we need to see resignations - resignations at Government level and resignations from the regulator. The reason this would happen is because of the failure to deliver on key initiatives such as this rooftop revolution we have been promised. All of us, including the Minister, know the reason this has not happened is because of the industry bigotry blockage against rooftop solar. As the Minister knows, I went against the departmental and industrial advice to sign Ireland up to a legal obligation to start micro-generation from June 2021. I did that because I knew that it would not happen here unless there was a legal obligation at EU level to make this happen. That was to happen from June 2021. As of last month, just one energy provider in this country is actually paying for rooftop solar micro-generation that is being supplied to the grid. That is sending a message to people that their energy is not wanted. If we want to make that happen and encourage it, yes the bulk of it will happen through self-consumption but people need to be paid for the excess.

This is within the control of the Minister and the regulator. Tomorrow morning, with the stroke of a pen, they could ensure people were paid. This needs to happen. It is the legal obligation. We are going to have a perverse situation where the European Commission will fine Ireland for not implementing a regulation mandating that people who have rooftop solar panels should be paid for excess electricity generation. This is at a time when we have a shortage of electricity.

Speaking of the bigotry blockages that exist, another one concerns the whole area of natural gas. As the Minister is aware, when I was the Minister, I directed that a report be completed on the future of the Kinsale gas field in advance of legislation that would have to be enacted by this Parliament to decommission that gas field. When we got the briefing from the Minister's Department in December 2020, I asked for a copy of this report. I was told it was imminent. The legislation came through this House in the spring of 2021 and we did not have this report. As the Minister is aware, I asked several times for this report. Last spring, a year later, the Minister told me it was imminent. We eventually got the report. It has now gone out for public consultation. Regarding spending on this process, the Department has estimated that it would require major investment. The south-west Kinsale reservoir was operational and storing natural gas until April 2017. We are the only EU member state that has no capacity to store natural gas and we need this type of capacity in the medium term. We must put this required investment into gas storage in the Kinsale gas field off our coast.

Last month, my colleagues and I brought forward a motion on the area of energy security. In that motion, we proposed the drafting and enactment of legislation to address the current supply deficit with an energy emergency measures in the public interest Act, which would have a sunset clause of 36 months. This legislation would do several things. It would ban any threat to turn off the electricity supply to domestic customers and critical social infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools and nursing homes. This must happen. The legislation would also ensure that we would reopen the capacity to generate the 250 MW of electricity available to us in the midlands power plants in Lanesboro and Shannonbridge. These should be used to burn biomass. To facilitate this happening, we need to suspend the licensing regime for the thinning and felling of forestry to facilitate the use of brash to fuel the midland power plants with biomass. This should be done rather than this biomass being exported to fuel power generation in other parts of Europe. We also need to direct that data centres and other high-demand electricity customers use their emergency backup generators when electricity is in short supply. They must all run their generators once every 24 hours. Why not ask them to run them between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to take pressure off our electricity grid?

We need to, temporarily at least, repower the Derrybrien wind farm. Any profits from doing that should be ring-fenced for the local community and go towards a local environmental benefit fund. The Government needs to acquire, through Gas Networks Ireland, a floating liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminal to be located either in Cork Harbour or the Shannon Estuary. It would be ensured that the sourcing of fracked gas would be banned for that facility. It should use compressed LNG that can be imported from other parts of the globe where it is in surplus supply. This could be used in the short term as a temporary reservoir to reassure people across this country that the lights will not go off this winter.

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