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

We are back dealing with this issue. I think I said before that we have a number of energy crises. We have the situation created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and we have particular issues containing and controlling the energy providers. We are finally having a proper conversation about windfall taxes and the actions that are absolutely necessary to ensure there is a bit of order and there are manners and that we can protect our people, to some degree. My colleagues will be dealing with this later in our Private Members' motion. We must look at capping prices for electricity, ensuring people have the security of knowing what the costs are going to be and then bringing in windfall taxes as a final piece of leverage. We were talking about brownouts and blackouts. We had rushed legislation previously. We all supported it, but we asked then how we ever got into this situation.

We all know the one thing this State has got right, to a degree, is foreign direct investment. We have provided a well-educated workforce. There is no doubt in regard to the tax element for some of the companies and there are the obvious factors like our being an English-speaking part of the EU and that we have an infrastructure we believe fit for purpose, although it has been shown itself to be under severe pressure. One of the points people would have mentioned was a definite, guaranteed electricity supply with no doubts, problems or issues. People would have said security of energy supply was the reason companies would not locate in certain parts of Asia and other parts of the world. However, we have not been able to get our act together to ensure we have the capacity to deliver on the need that is there, and so we are back dealing with this again. We support this legislation because we support ensuring we have that capacity, but we really need to get to grips with things.

A number of Deputies spoke about the Dermot McCarthy report. It is tasked with establishing how we got here and how we can ensure we do not go through this mad process again and that we do a decent piece of due diligence on what our energy requirements are going to be into the future. As I said, the two major issues are energy prices and our energy capacity. These are on top of the madness of the scenario we have with accommodation, which is impacting across the board.

Unfortunately, I have gone over time and will not be able to ask questions on Carlinn Hall. I am going to need information on the geothermal survey and whether that piece of work is on the correct trajectory.

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