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

I will come back to Deputy McNamara on phases 1, 2 and 3. He should not always believe what he reads in the newspapers. We are absolutely committed to floating offshore wind generation. It will involve the power-to-X approach the Deputy mentioned. As Government committed to the summer before last, we want not only a form of electricity but also innovative solutions that will use that power when it comes ashore at the likes of the Shannon Harbour or Cork Harbour. It is not just about electricity; it is also the potential development of other industrial applications. That is exactly what we are doing. We are doing it with proper planning to get the environmental planning right. The plan agreed by Cabinet will make it clear to developers how they can bid to be part of the initial phases, which are really only a first toe in the water. The scale of the potential after that is beyond compare. That is why this must be led and planned by the State. We do not need a Klondike gold rush; we need an ordered and organised mechanism which makes use of international development finance and capability as part of a well-planned system to make the most efficient use of the resource.

A number of Deputies referred to the possibility of a windfall tax. We will be introducing such a tax in the coming weeks. It will help us in providing further supports to help our people through this incredibly difficult time of high power prices.

A number of Deputies, including Deputy Whitmore, asked whether we are overriding the climate Act. Our climate plans require us to have an 80% renewable-powered system by the end of this decade, but we will still need some fossil fuel infrastructure as balancing capability. I would prefer to have this emergency generation plant as a backup rather than having to keep the likes of the plants at Tarbert or Moneypoint running forever and a day, generating very high emissions. Part of a low-carbon electricity system is balancing capability and the ability to turn on at the last minute an emergency power supply that is only run in exceptional circumstances and which therefore has low emissions. We cannot say to the Irish people that we will provide them with a power system for 51 weeks of the year. It has to run for all 52. That is what this does.

This Bill does address exceptional circumstances. These power provisions cannot apply to any other plant or in any other circumstances. It is absolutely and exclusively for use at Shannonbridge, Tarbert or both. There is no creep into any other environmental legislative arrangements. It is not the case that the EPA process is bad, wrong, flawed or too long as some, again including Deputy Whitmore, have said. That is not the problem here. The problem is that we need this power supply before Christmas. There will be full public consultation and access to all the information that has been garnered for the An Bord Pleanála planning process. This will be done in a thorough, rigorous and independent regulatory manner. There are no guarantees about getting through that environmental assessment or alternative assessment but we need to do this, using the articles in the environmental impact assessment directive that allow us to apply these emergency measures under European law, to make sure we can get this delivered within the necessary timelines.

To respond to Deputy Connolly, the Aarhus Convention provides for full access to information. That is an absolute line within the convention. As always, the EPA will abide by the convention in its public consultation, which will be thorough, rigorous and independent and which will live up to the agency's high standards. To answer the question of what this does, it is fundamentally about using that alternative assessment to alter the timelines in such a way as to give us a prospect of being able to deliver this by next winter rather than within the typical timeframe of 12 months. It is about following rigorous process and procedures but not falling foul of not having power next winter, as could be the case if this power plant was not available.

Why is there such a shortage of energy in the country? It is primarily because the capacity market systems that are in place did not deliver the gas generation backup we knew we needed. Auctions were initiated but, for a variety of reasons, did not deliver. It is not a conspiracy or anything hidden. It was an open and transparent process. The reason for those----

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