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

We have seen an escalation in Vladimir Putin's war on civilians in Ukraine. President Zelenskyy has spoken about cold as a weapon of mass destruction. We have seen the recent targeting of energy production and the madness of the attacks on Zaporizhzhia. We all see that this is happening because Russia cannot win in the field, so it is attempting to win in other ways now. This means there will be significant issues for Ukrainians due to the cold and lack of power. We also know we have an energy crisis across the board. That is another weapon that Vladimir Putin has. Both domestically and in the European Union, we have to get our act together to ensure we can mitigate issues as much as possible. This is also a matter of ensuring there is no economic contagion across the western world. This is a win that we do not need to give to Vladimir Putin. Beyond that, we have to deal with the refugee crisis with our European partners. We have to make sure that we have planning in place in this State so that we do not see a repeat of some difficulties that we had in the last while.

While I am talking about the energy crisis, I will repeat what was said about the need for mitigations in the form of communal or district heating systems. I have looked at an amendment relating to the temporary business energy support scheme, TBESS, as a possible solution, but I am not particularly worried about what the solution is once there is a solution for people such as the residents of Carlinn Hall, who are paying huge costs.

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